Public-private partnerships: Getting them right

In any area where collaboration is envisaged there is an element of risk. But when time is short and much needs to be done, a spirit of symbiotic partnerships is the best way to fulfil the development

We are at a crossroads in the journey of our country from being a leader of the emerging nations pack to taking its rightful place in the league of first world nations. For some, this may seem like wishful thinking but in reality there is no reason why this cannot be achieved well before India reaches its 75th anniversary of independence in the year 2022. This will need a sustained effort to reach and maintain a 10 per cent plus growth rate and necessitates active participation of many stakeholders — the government, corporate players, civil society and industry associations and aggregators in the growth processes of the country. And to make this happen with adequate scope and scale, a renewed focus on public-private partnerships (PPP) is the best way.
 
The biggest imperative for PPPs has been in the infrastructure sector with the ambitious target set in the 2012-17 five-year plan of infrastructure investment in excess of a trillion US dollars. The World Bank estimates that 824 PPP projects have reached financial closure in this segment in a range of areas, from core infrastructure to roads, ports and water services. The PPP projects recognised and initiated by the government have been many, ranging from user-fee based build-operate-transfer models, performance-based management and maintenance contracts and design-and-build turnkey contracts and the jury is still out on the success of this initial cohort and the lessons that could be learnt to replicate and scale projects in a variety of areas on a nation-wide basis.
 
Successful models have sprung up in non-traditional areas as well. In the city of Pune, the partnership model between the not-for-profit Pune City Connect Development Foundation and the Pune Municipal Corporation is one success, brought about by the joint commitment of the elected mayor and corporators, the municipal commissioner and the team in leadership roles in the corporation, various local, national and global corporations and social enterprises as well as NGO partners from the civil society, all putting aside traditional distrust and jealousies and working together for a common vision and defined causes. Four causes identified in Pune have been rejuvenation of the large numbers of Marathi- and Urdu-medium schools through better processes and teacher training and mentoring (shikshak sahyogis), setting up skills lighthouses in every municipal ward, making Pune digitally literate with at least one member of every family in the city trained to participate in Digital India initiatives for the benefit of their own families, and managing various tracks identified for transformation in the corporation and specifically within the Pune Smart City through a top class team working directly with the commissioner.
 

Illustration: Ajay Mohanty

While it is still too early to call Pune City Connect a runaway success, key strengths of the model point to how PP project models could be designed. The first is clear target setting by the government, embodied by the state minister, city mayor and municipal commissioner. Three key targets have been set for the programme. The first is hundred per cent digital literacy on the lines of the Prime Minister’s National Digital Literacy Mission through a combination of physical digital literacy centres, buses fitted out and assigned as mobile centres and a citywide Each One Teach Two volunteering movement. The second is a commitment to let every citizen in every corporation ward have the opportunity to fulfil her dream for a rewarding livelihood by creating a sense of urgency in the individual and providing the appropriate skills, mentoring and placement assistance to realise the dream. This is being done by planning and installing one Skills and Livelihood Lighthouse in every ward and drumming up support for funding, mentoring and volunteering from corporate and civil society participants. The third is the commitment to substantially upgrade quality in every municipal school and bring them on par academically with any English medium private school in the city. The model has been designed to be entirely friction-free with the capital expenditure for all infrastructure provided by the city, while the operational expenses for each activity are raised from philanthropic and corporate social responsibility funds by the board and the team members of Pune City Connect.
 
The PPP in its original construct has been envisaged as a commercial legal relationship between a government entity and private entity with investments made by the latter and performance-linked payments made by the former. The beauty of the PMC-PCC model is that each party is equally responsible for garnering funds to discharge their respective responsibilities and there is no inequity caused by a principal to agent kind of relationship. This is a true principal to principal arrangement that is succeeding largely due to the visionary leadership of Pune Municipal Commissioner Kunal Kumar and a fully appreciative and collaborative board of Pune City Connect. It also helps that the management team has been drawn from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, one of the best business schools in India, and the entire partnership is managed with the highest levels of quality standards.
 
India needs PPPs to come up in every area — education, skills, health, tourism, rural and urban employment generation, etc. and models of engagement will have to be innovative in design and robust in implementation. It is important to learn from the somewhat chequered track record of PPPs in our country to ensure that success rates in future are substantially improved. In recent years, successful PPP projects like the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust have shown that PPPs can work and opportunities now abound in all these as well as other projects in every significant city in the country. In any area where collaboration is envisaged, there is an element of risk but when time is short and so much needs to be done, a call to action to all stakeholders and robust actions initiated in a spirit of symbiotic partnerships is the best way to transform the development agenda for the country and get PPPs to succeed.

The author is Chairman of 5F World, Pune City Connect and Social Venture Partners India