Letters: Opinion matters

I read with great interest your editorial on “Take-off troubles” (December 24, 2009). It raises several important issues with respect to the Bangalore Airport public private partnership (PPP). Quite aptly, it concludes, “Blame games don’t get us far. What India needs is long-term thinking for long-term projects and a better handling of PPPs.”

It is not as if the best practices related to PPPs are not known or understood. It is just that rent-seeking often takes precedence over public interest. Unfortunately, opinion leaders and the media do not engage in an objective discussion when issues arise prior to finalisation of such transactions. Interested lobbies are allowed to create a hype in the media and elsewhere about the potential advantages of such deals, and anyone who raises issues is promptly isolated and criticised. This has been happening time and again, be it the Dabhol Power Project, the Bangalore Airport PPP or privatisation of electricity distribution in Delhi, to recount a few examples. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to suggest that we have been able to create public opinion in favour of sufficient scrutiny and due diligence before such projects are bid out.

Our ability as a nation to protect our development process from rent-seeking will, to a large extent, depend upon the ability of our opinion leaders and the media to identify and address these issues in good time. Until that happens, we may continue to see different forms of rent-seeking followed by blame games that would ultimately lead us nowhere.

Gajendra Haldea
Advisor to Deputy Chairman
Planning Commission
New Delhi