As oxymorons go, the term public-private partnerships (PPP) was bound to be a winner. And it did not disappoint the public. It did not even need the current paroxysms among the holders of capital to reach this denouement. The argument against the efficacy of PPP was made years ago. At the same time, India runs the largest portfolio of such projects among developing countries.
These were some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I read Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure, a slim treatise by K V Pratap, a bureaucrat in the Department of Economic Affairs, and Rajesh Chakrabarti, who
