 "mutual funds, investments, InvITs, Reits")
The Department of Economic Affairs has created a three-year Public Private Partnership (PPP) project pipeline which was announced in the Budget 2025-26, comprising 852 projects at a total cost of Rs 17 trillion, a finance ministry statement said on Tuesday.
“The pipeline provides early visibility of potential PPP projects to enable investors, developers and other stakeholders to undertake more informed planning and investment decisions,” the finance ministry said.
Of the total projects 232 are related to central ministries and departments and the remaining 630 are with states and union territories. The three main sectors for central projects are energy, transport & logistics and water & sanitation. In addition to these, the project pipeline for states also includes social and commercial infrastructure.
The road transport and highways ministry has a pipeline of 108 projects with a total cost of Rs 8.77 trillion, the highest among all central ministries. The power ministry has 48 projects - second highest with a total cost of Rs 3.4 trillion.
The pipeline also sees the ministry of railways -- once again -- trying its hand at the Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM). Business Standard reported in October about the railways' plans to try out the annuity-based model to increase private funding.
The national transporter, owning some of the largest land banks and capital expenditure-heavy projects -- will be responsible for around Rs 30,900 crore worth of PPP projects over the three years -- this is less than 10 per cent of the power ministry's basket and less than 5 per cent of the highways ministry's pipeline.
Around two-thirds of these projects have been designated as "joint venture/HAM" in the DEA's pipeline for the ministry. The list also includes a fully privately financed, designed, built, and operasted railway line between Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone-owned Dhamra Port and Jajpur in Odisha worth Rs 2987 crore.
HAM is a popular investment and infrastructure-creation model, especially in the highways sector, and refers to a system where the authority (National Highways Authority of India, or NHAI, in the case of highways) pays 40 per cent of the project cost upfront. The remaining 60 per cent is paid in instalments or annuities, and the highway concessions are treated as transferable assets during the period of maintenance.
The shipping ministry, which has found success in private participation in port projects in the past, will create projects worth Rs 37,644 crore in PPP over the next three years.
It also has a ready pipeline of Rs 60,000 crore projects running up till FY30.
Among states, Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of projects in its pipeline at 270 with a total cost of Rs 1.16 trillion followed by Uttar Pradesh with a pipeline of 89 projects with a cost of Rs 11,518 crore.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech last year had said that each infrastructure-related ministry will come up with a 3-year pipeline of projects that can be implemented in PPP mode. She had said that states will also be encouraged to do so and can seek support from the India Infrastructure Project Development Fund scheme to prepare PPP proposals.
