PPPs AND THE RURAL EDUCATION SECTOR

I had discussed this in one of my journal entries but I thought this could be discussed amongst the other classmates as well.Kindly post your comments on the same, especially on the issue of attracting private players in the rural sector.

Education ,I believe is one among the decisive factors that determine the technological progress of a nation. Eventhough there are other priorities at the rural sector, education ,I believe is a fundamental right and is something that no one should be denied. Not very surprisingly, in the rural scenario, the scene is very bad.Be it, roads, building infrastructure, electricity, water supply , the rural education sector requires a certain upliftment from its current status.

The primary facility requirement for a school or an education centre is a building to house the numerous children. Be it, classrooms, office rooms, or other complexes, building infrastructure forms the backbone of the education sector in general. A recent survey tells us that 62% primary schools in Assam, 34% in Andhra Pradesh and 30% in Meghalaya have just one classroom. Most of the schools at the rural sector, today lack such basic facilities. In many cases, schools are made out of thatched roof or temporary structures which wait for a small drizzle or a light wind to collapse down.

Most of the families are reluctant to send their children to the nearby schools because they are far away and it’s both difficult and costly, to ply to and fro. Thus transportation infrastructure, primarily roads find its need here.

According to data available from the MoP, in India, out of an estimated 587,556 villages about 150,000 are yet to be electrified. A general issue with schools in the rural sector is the lack of power supply.Electricity and power are essential right from performing routine activities to running machines and equipments. Its absence would therefore mean inefficiency and zero productivity.An interesting survey shows that among teachers who were paid to teach, absence rates ranged from 15% in Maharashtra to 71% in Bihar.

Lack of teaching staff in most of the rural areas is a major problem. A solution that lies ahead to this can be achieved through the telecom sector. With modern teleconferencing and internet facilities a rural area could be taught through online or virtual teaching methods. Similarly, computer literature, and setting up of internet facilities or telephone connections becomes inevitable for technological development, and all of these depend on the telecom infrastructure.

Health, sanitation and water supply also form a basic requisite for an educational institute. A study of 188 government-run primary schools found that 59% of the schools had no drinking water and 89% had no toilets.With the lack of all these, rural schools, are in many cases worse than a poultry farm.

Definitely what the government must do is to strategically include Private participation in this sector. As from the cases we have seen and with our knowledge on a PPP project , we know that with their involvement comes efficiency and faster project completion rates . Now as it is obvious, the private sector has not shown interest because they see very low returns here. Incentivizing them is the actual question.

Here what I propose is to include a rural education project also as a bidding criterion in huge urban infrastructure projects. Thus ,the bidders will have to take up these projects and complete them on time so as to continue with their urban initiatives .Also to incentivize them the revenues obtained from the rural projects could be tax exempted

.Be it, Roads, buildings, health and sanitation systems, telecommunication facilities, definitely, with our relatively lower rate of progress from the government’s initiatives, I believe that Private penetration is required so as to uplift the case of the rural education sector and until then, an educated Rural India shall stay, an unfulfilled dream.

Crazy infrastructure proposals - Floating cities

This time Japan has certainly stretched their imagination bordering on science fiction. They have come up with this crazy idea where people will be living on gigantic cities in the ocean. And not just cities, whole districts and even countries can be formed.

The concept is known as green float & they even want to try for zero waste & negative carbon emissions by incorporating all sorts of "green technologies" such as complete recycling of all waste and building enormous artificial ecosystems.

While right now no one has any plan or the money and all this is still science fiction, I feel that if people do some serious research on these concepts, they may actually come up with solutions that are also very relevant to current issues. Work on such concepts can result in spin-offs that can be of great use for tackling many current infrastructure problems like waste recycling, water treatment & desalination, zero emission policy, "green & sustainable development", use of alternative energy (like solar, etc..), vertical farming, transport systems, lower maintenance systems, and many more.

There are other crazy ideas like Tokyo Pyramid, which also try to tackle the issue of space in future living and other proposals. This Japanese firm is known for coming up with really ambitious proposals. Whether we can actually invest in such schemes is very questionable, but some of their technological proposals are certainly worth putting some research into as they can be pertinent to improvement of current infrastructure.

This is from a newspaper article : -

"...Green Float: The futuristic concept that sees humans live in giant skyscrapers on floating water lilies in the middle of the Pacific.

Humans in the future could live in mini floating cities that drift across the Pacific as if on giant water lilies.

The startling new concept has been dreamed up by Japanese technology firm Shimizu and is designed to be a way of harnessing green technologies and creating carbon-neutral cities.

The Green Float concept involves a number of cells, each one kilometre wide, that house between 10,000 and 50,000 people.

The majority of people on the cells would live in huge towers 1km high surrounded by lush green fields

Each individual cell would be free to float on the Pacific Ocean near the equator but could also be joined together with other cells to form larger towns and even cities.

A group or modules, a collection of cells, would become a country in its own right.

Most people in this brave new world would live in a 1 kilometre-high ‘City in the Sky’ at the centre of each cell. More people would live in residential areas around the edge of the cell.

The central towers would be surrounded by grassland and forests and be self-sufficient in terms of food, while livestock and other farming would take place in 'plains' also surrounding the tower - all built on a lattice of 7,000-tonne honeycomb pontoons.

The towers would be built from super-light alloys with the metal deriving from magnesium in seawater.

The imaginative plan is designed to create a future carbon-neutral society and the Shimizu developers claim that living on cells in this way would cut carbon emissions by 40 per cent.

The floating cells, each with a City in the Sky structure at its centre, can join together to form larger modules

The City in the Sky skscrapers are designed to be carbon negative with extensive environmental technologies and recycling facilities built in

The cells would create zero waste and recycle every product and covert waste into energy using new green technologies. Islands of waste would drift around the ocean and could be ‘harvested’ to provide energy

The location of the islands is key to their success too, the designers claim.

Each group of cells would be near the equator where the climate is at its most stable and a range of technologies would be used to protect the floating cities from tidal waves and extreme weather.

To protect the inhabitants from large waves, strong elastic membranes would be attached to the lagoons around the outer edge of the cells, with the shallows above the membranes standing 30 feet above sea level.

Shimizu scientists calculate that the water pressure difference between the lagoons and the ocean would limit the movement of the membranes and buffer the force of the open sea waves.

Seawalls as high as 100 feet could also be constructed. And tsunamis in the open sea are far less dangerous than those that hit coastal areas, the designers say.

Enlarge

A country consisting of one million people would be formed after modules joined together one by one

Lightning rods would be fitted around the circumference of the towers and mesh lightning conductors will be placed on the exterior walls to protect against lightning strikes.

Shimizu wants to develop the first cells by 2025 and is concentrating on developing the technologies to make it happen. The concept was displayed at a recent Japanese university conference.

This is the not the first outlandish idea that Shimizu has come up with. The firm also proposes encircling the moon in a belt of solar collectors that would collect solar energy and transmit it to Earth....."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1328680/Green-Float-The-bizarre-new-concept-sees-humans-future-live-giant-skyscrapers-floating-water-lilies.html#ixzz157rg9DN6

There is also a video on that link.

Investing in Solar Power for India

India's tropical location makes it naturally favoured to make use of huge amounts of solar energy. Right now there is a 35000 sq. km area in the Thar Desert that is allocated for any proposed large solar projects, and the estimate is that they could harness anywhere upto 700 to 2100 GW depending on efficiency.

Note : As a reference for comparison, the installed power generation capacity as of now 162 GW (June 2010) and the demand is likely to cross 1 GW in the next 20-30 years. We can in theory extract more energy than we'll ever need for the next several decades. As a statistic the total energy available is so great that even with 10% efficiency of harnessing, we still have more than 1000x the energy demand in 2015 (Wiki Reference)

The problem here though is the cost of investment. Right now this would require huge areas of land and the problems of land acquisition and the associated cost is very prohibitive. A better way of using the available space is to go 3-D and try for rooftop systems. However to make this feasible requires the technology to become substantially cheaper.

Right now the cost of production ranges from 15 to 30 per unit compared to around 5 to 8 per unit for conventional thermal energy. (Aside : For thermal energy, that's far more than our EB bill rates even with the revised tariff -- profitability vs affordability issues.)

Even the best solar cells are only about 25% efficient which is close to the theoretical limit, and that's as good as we can go. However they are very robust and can last for 30 yrs + at maximum capacity.

At present the renewable energy scenario stands at just 16 GW most of which is due to wind energy.

The Govt. has taken up a major initiative in this regard with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, which though is still in planning phase. You can check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru_National_Solar_Mission

If we could sustainably get into solar power production then over several years our import bill (most of it on oil) can also be drastically reduced.

We have to accept that with the limits on coal and petroleum reserves, solar energy is the future. But still there is a lot of ground that needs to be covered.

References : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_India

To Lead By Example!

India, on the verge of a double digit GDP growth needs to capitalize on the Obama factor if it has to meet its needs in almost all sectors. A rather overly regulated economy preventing FDI in the infra sector was communicated by the U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, calling for further policy shifts. But the U.S no longer seems to be the driving force in the South Asian economies and now, more than ever, they seem reliant on these economies towards providing jobs / opportunities for the Americans themselves. There is probably no better opportunity than this for India to capitalize upon. But, like all bureaucratic initiatives, time seems a defining factor which brings us back to the need of direction. This direction stems from the need of strong leadership.

On whether Manmohan Singh paints a picture of sound leadership, is a very debatable topic in itself, however, the lack of leadership in the state of Maharashtra is something unheard of. In a people-rich country, presence of leaders, or better said as, presence of politicians with a majority behind them, seems lacking. How can a multi-crore project function sans leadership? Well, at least there will be fewer ‘Adarsh’ like scams that can add to the public budget. Forget the concept of good and pro-active leaders, going against all vigilant odds to satisfy private-partnership, here, we have no leadership, nobody!

But however the issue of political instability does not seem to be nascent in India alone, the U.S is seeing turmoil as well and as a result, economic policies will get more attention and probably get diluted before their actual implementation with India. Under the backdrop of a successful $10 billion deal we seem to forget the lack of direction in the political set-up of the U.S which may cause otherwise.

The required sense of direction is more than just plain leadership; it is to follow by example. Consider the recent bilateral agreement between Russia and Norway on settling their border disputes over the North Sea, it was carried out very smoothly, in a very novel and diplomatic manner which now becomes a model that the world can replicate (especially when it comes to such volatile issues). However, in our case of establishing PPP’s as a norm, we are in need of a similar example in all states. We have a framework in place, but a successful PPP with NO limitations needs to be set as an exemplar.

Bottom-line, as Vikram Kapur had mentioned, we need funds from wherever we can garner them, for which we need FDI, for which we need the US, for which we need to woo Obama! But as the NPM goes, most of this FDI should fulfill the operational directives of the services rather than controlling the strategic administration of resources, for which Manmohan needs to think beyond his bleak chance of a second term in office!

All you can get on PPPs in India

I know that some of you would be familiar with this link -- but this site has a lot of information with news and updates on PPP projects in India. Do check it out if you didn't know.

http://www.pppinindia.com/

The Big Fight -- CWG or no CWG?

Hey everyone, CEA's debate for tomorrow is on the subject of the Commonwealth Games. It will be nice if everyone will attend this as I am sure a lot of pertinent points will be raised on all the botch-ups that were made and it is very relevant to what we study as well.

I also think they will take up the Olympics Hosting issue at the end. For a point :- The paragraph below is from Wiki.

Costs

The initial total budget estimated by Indian Olympic Association in 2003 for hosting the Games was 16.2 billion (US$364.5 million) but escalated official total budget estimation in 2010 became 115 bn ($2.6 B), which excludes non-sports-related infrastructure development in the city such as airports, city beautification and roads.^[18] Business Today magazine estimated that the Games cost 300 bn ($6.8 bn).^[19] The 2010 Commonwealth Games are the most expensive Gaming event ever.

There was an article once in the Hindu which had a big list of incomplete infrastructure when the commonwealth games was inagurated. I can't find it, but when I do, I'll post it in the comments.

Srinath

Water Woes in Chennai

India, in many ways is reeling under an acute shortage of water.The main reason cited,which was highlighted during the class, was the need for more efficient use of the available resources through the construction of appropriate infrastructure.

South India is blessed with the presence of numerous rivers but the situation in a state such as Tamilnadu has reached new levels of desperation.Chennai meets a significant portion of its demand from its Desalination Plant located at Minjur,35km north from the city,which has been in operation since 2009.The success of the project has raised many eyebrows and a second Desalination plant at the cost of 1000 Crore is to come up at Nemmeli in a couple of years.The move towards Desalination has been rather nonchalant since the first plant had come up.

Chennai city draws about 600 million litres of water per day from lakes and reservoirs surrounding the city.The present Desalination Plant provides 100 million litres of water per day,making it a very vital component of the water supply chain.However,there have been no initiatives towards replenishment of existing sources or even to repair the losses that occur due to leaks. The need for a new plant can be avoided by stemming up measures in this front.

Water from a Desalination Plant is naturally more expensive and at present,it is priced at Rs 49 per kiloliter,which is nearly four times the normal price of getting water from lakes and reservoirs.Moreover,the 600 Crore Plant at Minjur is based on a DEBOOT (design-build own-operate-transfer) plan,due to which price fluctuations can occur after the firstyear of operation.The Government saw this in positive light as after the first year of operation, elections are due and there is no sense of incumbency among the people when their water demands have been met at a relatively lower price.This issue has escalated to the extent of M.K Stalin,one of the forerunners for the CM position, promising 100 Desalination Plants along the entire south-east coast if his party is re-elected.

Another neglected viewpoint is the environmental damage that a Desalination Plant could cause.There is a need to dispose the highly salty water that is creates by the process of reverse-osmosis.This is normally taken to a distant part in the ocean and dumped.But since its density is much higher than the surrounding sea-water,it settles at the bottom of the ocean floor without mixing with the surrounding water.The high concentrated salt content on the ocean floor is harmful to any source of life and a long term problem in this regards can easily be cited as well.The proposal of 100 Desalination Plants would go miles in fuelling the long term problems mentioned.

Going for Desalination becomes a prerequisite only in the Gulf Countries where,there is no
water source on land.Moreover,Mumbai has four times the population of Chennai and it still has a much better water supply network.The Government needs to recoup all its resources towards the re-engineering of its existing resources to maximize throughput which entails minimal investment as well.The only positive is that the opposing party has not come out with a bigger number of Desalination Plants as an election promise!

Role of women in Civil Construction Industry

From the starting of the course, i wish to see and analyze the problems faced by the labours in the construction industry, especially those face by the women and try to have a solution to them. But we couldn't have it in our portion, so i thought of having a discussion in here on this topic. I read many publications on this issue but only very few of them were good at explaining the real problems faced by them. Here is one of the very best article. It is a kind of survey and view of the real women workers in the industry.

National Commission for Women
Status of Women Construction Workers
http://images.photogallery.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=2876543

Although organizations like National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), but how much extend they solve the problems. A lot of public hearing of women construction workers have been held in various cities under the National Commission for Women, but i really doubt whether it is being implemented properly or not. The main reason for the negligence of this problem is may be due to the less percentage of their constituency in the industry.

---Sai Chaitanya (mcs)

CWG- Good or Bad?

Recently, CWG have hogged the limelight for a variety of reasons. The former sports minister himself acknowledges the fact that a lot of money which could have been otherwise used for other important avenues has been spent wastefully on these games. But the question myself and a lot of other Indians ask is, " Is investing thousands of crores of rupees in sporting events that bad? Then why do countries fight for hosting such events? Are their any benefits?". Luckily I have a come across an article in The Times of India which gives us a decent explanation to the questions posed.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Worst-Foot-Forward/articleshow/6507516.cms

By reading this article it is clear that hosting CWG is not necessarily bad but, it is the planning which we lack that made it into a fiasco that is.

Ravi Kesav S.P

United We Stand!

In a very glad move, the Tamil Nadu government is all set to initiate the Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) Bill. Finally, it seems, the government has realized that simply building flyovers and widening roads on every congested route is not going to relieve it permanently from the traffic woes. The government's effort of addressing the issue in urban transportation on a larger scale is certainly commendable.

Basically, the prime function of CUMTA will be, but not restricted to, the integration of all the modes of transport- buses, suburban trains & MRTS.

This means that all the transport infrastructure development in the city will be overseen by this agency by developing a Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) for the same. The bureaucratic delays and lack of coordination between the various agencies like MTC, Southern Railways, Chennai Corporation, Suburban Municipalities etc. which had hindered the implementation of projects in the past would no longer be a problem.

The main objective of the CTP is to promote the public transport sytem in the city, which has consistently been losing its share against private mode. Between 1992 and 2008, the percentage trips made in buses fell from 39% to 26% (source: CMDA). Although, CMDA in it's Second Master Plan, being highly optimistic, has aimed to increase the public-private share to 55-45, the intermittent survey conducted in 2005, showed an underwhelming 28-72 split. To address this issue, CMDA has come up with Bus Rapid Transit Ways(BRTW) project along 7 routes, one of which is the IT corridor. These routes will have a dedicated corridor for buses, and in conjunction with the ITS, the bus transport would be made faster, safer, reliable and comfortable.

The major advantage to the commuters by the integrated mode, is 'single ticket travel'. To illustrate: If a person residing in Medavakkam(suburb in south Chennai) wants to go to, say, Parry Corner (CBD), the most convinient option is to take a bus from Medavakkam to Velachery MRTS station and then take a train to Parry Corner. This is more convenient than to take a direct bus to Parry Corner because the city limits starts from Velachery, and the journey time of bus drastically increases as it moves towards the CBD, while the MRTS is much faster and mostly run under-capacity. With the introduction of single ticketing system, the commuter can do away with the standing in queue at the railway station. With the introduction of BRTW, which are designed to act as a feeder to other modes, the travel would be unperturbed by the traffic congestion, which would will attract significant patronage towards public transport. This is bound to relieve congestion to a considerable extent, cause reduction in road accidents, reduce vehicle emission.

Having said that, the practical implications will only be known after the actual implementation of the system. Hopefully, it turns out to be a success and other Metropolises would follow the suite very soon.

Reference:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Seamless-commuting-to-be-reality-soon-in-Chennai/articleshow/6448633.cms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai_RBTW

PS: I agree that the title was a bit cheesy!

Where are the civil engineers???

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/business/global/26engineer.html?_r=1

The above article might not be related to Infrastructure engineering but rather more towards Infrastructure engineers.

Indians have always had the pride to boast the IT sector, IT boom, white-collared job and so on. But unfortunately even such elites have to confront the grim reality of the Indian Infrastructure. A world bank studies says, India would need to train three times as many civil engineers as it does now to meet its infrastructure needs. There is an alarming dearth of civil/infrastructure engineers. The scenario has completely changed since 1990, when Civil outperformed IT.

Lack of right expertise/infrastructure engineers in this sector have led to whopping losses in the country. Faulty designs by the incompetent engineers have led to catastrophic failures. Rickety bridges crumbling under heavy rains, unfathomable potholes in roads, daily power cuts, water shortage, poor sanitation have all lowered the comfort zones of the users.

You find big projects successfully running in other parts of the world like Dubai. They use their potential human resources very wisely. The irony is that most of these workers/engineers migrate from India in lure of high salary.

So I feel that, it's the responsiblity of our government and other companies in this sector to stop this civil-brain drain by incentivizing these engineers in every aspects possible. A lot of trust and security have to be built around this sector for people to join and continue in this field.

Kadambari

Expensive solar power can mean other Enron

Hi Guys,

I came across an interesting article in the Sunday edition of the Times of India. One can read the article here,

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/entry/expensive-solar-power-can-mean

I believe it is one of the countless instances where the government tries to mislead the public by introducing the so called "targets" without necessarily examining the feasibility of them.

Regards,

Ravi Kesav S.P

May be we can still cash the check..

- Vinayak

Courtesy: Data for the Graph "Infrastructure Development in India and China—A Comparative Analysis" M. Julie Kim and Rita Nangia August 2008.




If we are to look at Indian and Chinese decisions on infrastructure development from the point of view of "to where/which sector" the money was put in, as against "how"; a strikingly different part of the game reveals itself, or so I believe. For instance take a look at the much higher growth in the Telephone sector in China as against that in India during the period of 1980-90 and 1990-2005. Did you notice some other parameter that shows a similar trend? Yes , Annual GDP Growth? We are again back at the question as to 'does greater GDP growth leads to more telephone lines or vice-versa?'




Lets deviate a little, look at Sardar Patel Road congestion issue that has come up; the proposal is a 145 cr (114 cr for land acquisition) grade separator. Imagine decongestion is feasible, at least for a few years, through the implementation of, say, congestion pricing, or for that matter any other Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) for a reasonable investment of 20 cr. Looks like a saving of 125 cr isn't it? ; can't this be suitably used elsewhere, perhaps as research funding for stimulating the needed technological development which in turn will catalyze rapid economic development.




So compare now, for the sake, telephone and ITS; and you will see that they are/rely on the telecommunication backbone of the country. So essentially telecommunication, though indirectly, hypothetically helped us to postpone the congestion in Sardar Patel Road and help us find new technologies.




So could this logic explain why China overtook India in the economic race? So can we apply the same and cash in?, entering the virtuous circle, apply technology(which is by all means a part of infrastructure)>fund research>develop the economy>more research>better infrastructure>all kinds of development...




Before we set the ball rolling, lets reflect for a moment; are we at the right time and going in the right direction? 50% of our population is below 25 years of age where as 80% of Chinese population is above 15; We are at a better position of 79 in Failed States Index where as China stands at 62. Will our policy of promoting equality right from the start turn the tides in our favor? Or will, like China, accepting initial income inequality as an inevitable effect of economic development be the only way out? Will China's 10 point growth sustain? If so for how long?




Are we to shoot for the stars, with the hope that even if we miss we will land in the moon?




Reference:

1. "India’s Economic Growth and Market Potential: Benchmarked Against China" G.K. Kalyanaram GK Associates
2. "Is China's Economic Growth Sustainable?" Ali Wyne
3. "Infrastructure Development in India and China—A Comparative Analysis" M. Julie Kim and Rita Nangia
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India
6. http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/04/stories/2010080458790100.htm
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Failed_States_Index
   

Rs 3.5 bn for Delhi's infrastructure ahead of Commonwealth games

I think it will be interesting to see how the infrastructure of Delhi is geared up for the Commonwealth games. With our national pride at stake, given the grandeur with which China put up their Olympics, it is an extremely important event for the country and the government seems to have realized this. Here's a small article on Economic Times: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/Rs-35-bn-for-Delhis-infrastructure-ahead-of-Commonwealth-games/articleshow/5153640.cms

We have spoken about political will at many points in the course. A stimulus like the Commonwealth games forces the country to develop infrastructure on a fast-track basis. The SAF Games in Chennai, for instance, triggered rapid infrastructure development. After the games, the residential facilities built for the sportspersons were converted into housing facility for government employees, and the swimming pool, etc. are open to the public for use.

On the one hand, while the government imposes on itself deadlines like Sonia Gandhi's birthday, I think hosting such events of international importance could be a potential area for fast-track world class infrastructure development in urban cities.

Private firms may invest $150bn in infrastructure

Hello Everybody,

Did you notice this news article in today's 'The Hindu -24.10.09'.

Planning Commission adviser says the Government has set a target to spend around $518bn for infrastructure facilities by 2012. Well, we knew it, isn't it - Our Advisor said so! Accordingly, 30% is expected from private sector (aiming at PPP model) which is around $150bn, another 30% from budgetary resources and the rest of 40% from commercialized budgets of NTPC and power grid (Well, is this feasible? Can NTPC and Power grid aide this much amount?). The Adviser, Mr. Gajendra Haldea, planning commission, also states that they expect a quantum leap in the infrastructure development during the 11th FYP from 5% to 9% (Is our present rate only 5%?). they also expect PPP model from developed countries...Because markets in India offer huge opportunities (always quoted statement) and returns on capital would be higher than in a developed country (Ok...facts here). How does all this sound?

A new Indian Public Sector

Following Professor Sitaram's lecture highlighting the importance of heroes and how even public companies can also succeed, here's an interesting story which I came across some time ago.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2009/jul/eco-bridge.htm

The Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam, which was on the verge of being liquidated, has now turned the corner and built over 330 bridges in three years. The cause has been championed by Mr. Pratyaya Amrit ( :-) ) , an IAS officer of the batch of 1991.

The best part about this story is that it was effected in Bihar. Presently, the company is looking at expanding beyond Bihar and building bridges in other states!

The takeaways from this story are multifold. For instance, Mr Amrit came up with the idea of the “Mobile Inspector” system where all Executive Engineers have a GPRS enabled sim card in their phones. They can go to the site, photograph the bridge, take out their pencil stylus and fill in details like the name of the bridge, its location and status. It is then directly sent to the chairman who sees it on his computer in his office. Everyday, the Chairman monitors the progress. There is thus, a new sense of accountability.

The story is a great read and was shared to me by Vikas. I felt it has a lot of importance for this class. Comments please?

Regards,

Amrit Acharya

Hogenakkal Water Supply Project

Page 13 of today's Hindu has a tender for Hogenakkal Water Supply and Flurosis Mitigation Project. Some interesting observations:

1. It says "Re-Invitation", presumably implying that no one responded the first time around. What could be the reasons? Has anything changed this time around?
   
2. The GoTN has recieved financial assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
   
3. The contract is for construction and maintenance for a period of five years, and is unit-rate based.
   
4. The pre-qualification documents are available for free, possibly to encourage more small time contractors.

Any comments/observations?

Harsha

Public-private partnership deals no longer confidential

The Central Information Commission has ruled that the information in a PPP deal is not confidential and is open to public scrutiny. Link at http://www.hindustantimes.com/Public-private-partnership-deals-no-longer-confidential/H1-Article1-456228.aspx .The argument being made that the deal involves a public good and therefore the deal should be treated as an agreement between the public (but not the beurocracy) and the private company. But this might have a potential damage implications for the private sector companies with regards to their competency etc. The debate is quite open ended. I think this issue will roll out a series of discussions in the coming time. Will this boil down the ongoing debate whether people really have confidence that the government they elected is actually working for their own good. At it also raises the question that if I am a partner to the agreement (indirectly as government is just a representative of people) Why cant I know the deal I am actually entering into?

PPP's - long term private capital involvement.

We discussed issues related to public private partnerships, their pros and cons in class. It is clear that ultimately it is the taxpayer's money that goes into building or maintaining any kind of public service. PPP's can be seen as a means to involve private capital in infrastructure building for a long time. In traditional contract based projects also, it is private player that builds the infrastructure and hand it to government. It was only short term induction of private capital. In a project where private player retrieves his investment from tariffs, government is not getting that revenue in future but the effective benefit to the govt is that much needed infrastructure is getting built in advance which improves the general well being.
Since it is believed that private operator is better at providing quality, instead of a PPP we can go for other types of contract where private player operates(maintenance of a facility) for a fixed fee. But it only means direct investment by the government all the time. So, a PPP effectively involves private capital for long time. Apart from problems that arise in initial stages of PPP's such as procuring permits, land acquisition, many problems with PPP's arise because they are longterm. some of them are Political uncertainities, Inflation, apparent complete privatization(perception of general public) of basic provisions by the government and foreign exchange risks if global players are involved.
Another difficult or perhaps the most important challenge is to bring institutional change in general public about government has responsibility to provide all amenities absolutely free. With the advent of the PPP, the problem became more pronounced since public is reluctant to pay more tariffs(example : water). Is it reasonable to conclude that many problems faced by PPP projects are because they are longterm?

Cultural Diversity in Project World - Can it be celebrated?

Cultural influences are ofcourse nothing new. Any of us who have traveled to another country, the least to say to another state in our land of diversity, would have encountered some form of cultural differences in life.
In a mobile project world, it is quite a possibility that the project managers would end up working in a variety of cultures or work with people who reflect an array of multi-cultural perspectives. Projects around the world are found to showcase similar kinds of threats and opportunities that are non-technical and quite often identified as cultural.To name a few, some cultures invite very direct speech, while others abstain from it. Some cultures follow a very formal chain-of-command in terms of project communications, while other cultures promote a more horizontal flow of information.
A Project Manager working within a particular cultural environment will necessarily reflect that culture, both explicitly and implicitly. Now, is this a good reason to learn to value and celebrate the cultural diversity in one's project world?

Bandra-Worli Sea Link

Lessons to learn from

The Bandra-Worli Sea Link presents an interesting case-study of infrastructure planning and management issues, in line with our discussion on the Montreal Olympic Stadium. The sea-link was originally conceived of in 1960s, but received a green signal only in 1999, after studies were conducted by the Central Road Research Institute and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) was appointed as the nodal agency for the project in 1999. The MSRDC awarded the project to the Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), but only to see a series of failure in meeting deadlines. The initial deadline was December 2004 which was later revised to December 2007 and then to December 2008. Actual work, however, did not commence until January 2005 when the Supreme Court gave the project go-ahead. The consequences of haphazard planning and scheduling, as was evident in the Montreal case, are reflected in this example as well.

The MSRDC changed consultants in 2003 and gave entry to Egypt-based Dar Consultants. The new party brought in tremendous design changes which escalated the costs by four times (Rs 4.4 billion to Rs 16.34 billion). HCC is said to have lost about Rs 4 billion due to these changes. Thus we see the role of designing and its crucial place in the overall implementation of an infrastructure project.

In April 2009, days before the completion of the project, three sets of sub-contractors threatened to pull out due to issues with the consultants. One of them, the Roman Tarmant Ltd., was about to obtain a contract for Polymer Modified Bitumen (PMB) surfacing to provide a water-proof road. However, the company backed out due to unreasonable conditions on warranty period. The wide spectrum of players involved in an infrastructure project and the corresponding human management that the size of such projects calls for is evident in this case.

A part of the rise in costs was due to the interests on borrowings and payment to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai for a casting yard, an instance that shows how economic factors can equally inflect a project just as any other. Also to be noted is the fact that around 4000 workers and 150 engineers from India as well as China, Egypt, Canada, Switzerland and Britain are said to have participated in the project, which would have demanded micro-level cultural integration, a pointed that was highlighted in the class.

A few local issues like environmental concerns and issues pertaining to the fishermen, also surfaced during construction, which, though parochial, could have impeded the completion of the project. The Bandra-Worli sea-link, however, managed to brush such concerns aside with active political support from the state. To epilogue, this project presents many of the nuances involved in infrastructure planning and shows the amount of meticulousness that the task calls for.

Sources:
Indian Infrastructure, July 2009
"Bandra-Worli Sea Link: A Traveller's Delight", The Economic Times, June 30, 2009
(http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Infrastructure/Bandra-Worli-sea-link-A-travellers-delight-/articleshow/4718082.cms)
Official Website (http://www.bandraworlisealink.com/)

Planning Infrastructure projects

In continuation to the discussion we had with regard to the planning problems pertaining to the Montreal olympic complex Case study, I would like to make a point regarding the time duration allocated to a project. Usually when we bid for a project, the successful bidder is the one who quotes the lowest. So, its basically the cost (or the expertise of the bidding company in certain cases) that we are looking into and the time constraints are not given emphasis while awarding a project. The contractor is basically bound to accept the time line given to him to execute the project. With so many projects going off track, isnt it high time we gave enough emphasis on time constraints too while bidding? Should we not give due importance to submitting the tentaive schedule for the project too while bidding.. which could probably throw light onto whetehr the contractor has done his Home work well enough..??

Augmenting Supply vs. Increasing the efficiency of use

In class, we spoke about how most power sector reforms were targeted at increasing the supply of power (i.e installing more power plants etc) and how the actual power supplied to users could also be increased by reducing transmission and distribution losses. The same is true of water. One way of solving a water scarcity problem is to treat, recycle and re-use wastewater. This way we reduce our dependency and our impact on the natural environment. The following article by Dr. R.K. Pachauri of TERI is an interesting read, and talks about the same issue.

Delhi Metro - Some Interesting Facts.

I found out an interesting article on Delhi Metro in Live Mint "Off the record" column. The link is at http://www.livemint.com/articles/2009/08/30220005/Delhi-Metro-what-counts-what.html

I sensed a tinge of bias against Delhi Metro in general, and Sreedharan in particular, in the whole article.Nevertheless, it discusses some very interesting points, on lines of what we discussed about the urban metros in our class. I am jotting some points that i felt were interesting.

• Presence of a champion figure in E. Sreedharan.
• Some form of reduction in Vigilance and audit has helped the decision making to become a lot quicker.
• Huge tax exemptions and soft loans provided are a critical factor for the success.
• Land acquisition was done under emergency clause of Land Acquisition act ! (I do not know whether we can acquire land under emergency clause for metros anymore.)
• He also makes a point towards the end about replicability and development of second string of leadership.

It is interesting to note a lot need to be done to create a facilitating environment for such projects. Such things may not have been possible if the project was done PPP way. We will have to see how the other metros handle these issues, where Delhi Metro was benefited by some extra-ordinary privileges.

National Sanitation Policy 2008

In continuation of the discussion in today's class on Urban Infrastructure, I wish to mention the National Sanitation Policy 2008.

The GoI announced the National Urban Sanitation Policy 2008 with the vision that “all Indian cities and towns become totally sanitized, healthy and liveable and ensure and sustain good public health and environmental outcomes for all their citizens with a special focus on hygienic and affordable sanitation facilities for the urban poor and women".

The institutional arrangements encourages the local urban bodies to come up with a City Sanitation Plan involving the multiple stakeholders of the city. The policy also envisages constitution of a City Sanitation Task Force, headed by the Mayor (does one exist?? :P) involving the key stakeholders including representatives from the civil societies. In addition, the policy also announced a National Award Scheme for Sanitation for Indian Cities with a proposed methodology on the rating and categorization of cities on 100 points scale based on their performance.

You can find a nice summary of the policy here.

You can also download the policy (PDF) here.

Harshavardhan R.

PPPs in Infrastructure

The Confederation of Indian Industries, Southern Region (CII-SR) organized a conference called Suminfra on Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) in Infrastructure in Chennai last week. Several speakers spoke about very relevant issues that affect PPPs in India, most of which we will also discuss in our course. Dr. A. Ramakrishna, who was the president of L&T and is now an adjunct professor at IIT-M spoke of the need to re-define contractor procurement procedures, Mr. Venkatesh of L&T spoke about bringing in more flexibility into contracting mechanisms, a speaker from CRISIL described the creation of an overall project-rating system to evaluate PPP opportunities and so on. There was also an interesting presentation on PPPs in water treatment and supply by Tata Projects.

We might reflect on this later in the semester, but there seems to be a gradual shift in the ways infrastructure is being viewed, moving from being transaction or deal-focused to a more holistic integration of long-term sustainability goals. This certainly seems to be the right approach to follow. However, it remains to be seen as to how we actually implement such strategies in practice, outside conferences.

Financial Crisis

Hi all,

I have one issue to discuss...I know all the classes are over now! And even Exam too...!

But had one issue for discussion so posting my thoughts on the blog...

Well, As we all know about the financial meltdown across the Globe leaving the finance giants and banking sectors in a HUGE HUGE trouble.

Most of the construction companies and infrastructure developers are indirectly affected from this Financial Meltdown, since they get their finances for the project from these finance and bank sectors....

So now the issue is:

“What can we (Infrastructure Developer/Government) do to come out of this FINANCIAL DEPRESSION?”

Putting in simpler terms what strategies can be thought of, so as to ease the fund flow?

To minimize the effect our Finance Minister has come up with a strategy to lower the Interest Rate and try to boost the present financial condition...[Source: Business Line]

What can be the other mechanisms to avoid/minimize the effect of Financial Crisis?

I know that this problem is not so easy to solve...

One option would be to give a pause to the development/improvement programs for the time being!

Another option would be to take small projects, which involves lesser capital and can be borne by the developer himself.

Another (Strange & Out of Hat) option would be to do every development/improvement project on CREDIT!!!

Can you suggest some of the strategies??? Since the thoughts what I mentioned above are not the right solutions!!!

- Jeetu

PPPs for affordable housing

Very recently, my research has moved in the direction of figuring out whether PPPs can be used to develop affordable housing in Tamil Nadu for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Groups (LIG) in society. There has also been a lot of talk recently on building 'nano homes' and the last edition of Infrastructure Today had several articles related to this.

The second master plan for the Chennai Metropolitan area estimates housing demand for the EWS and LIG segments to be 8,00,000 by 2026. Informal estimates seem to suggest that we are currently building at the rate of a mere 2000 houses per year! This seems to be a clear case for PPP where private sector efficiencies might have to be harnessed to deliver 8,00,000 houses by 2026. The catch is that by definition, affordable housing (300 sq ft pirced at Rs 3,00,000, say). is not very profitable and therefore might not be very attractive to the private sector.

So how do we solve this conundrum? I have some thoughts but would like to see suggestions that you guys come up with.

Stanford Blog on Infrastructure

Stanford University's Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects (CRGP) also hosts a blog that contains several infrastructure-related articles from an international perspective. All of you might consider browsing through this at some point.

Only Central & State Government must handle future metro projects...

This is the essence of an article in a news paper (23rd sep) written by E.Sreedharan (managing director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd) to Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India).


Already news came (on 30th Aug) in Economic Times that govt is willing to construct all future metro projects through BOT process. If this is true, private companies are the owners. The central Govt is just there to release funds. So there is a chance that they can extend the railway network thereby their properties near the project may increase to 2 to 3 folds.

Govt tries to charge less fares for the prosperity of the society and the private companies are not interested to take up the project unless they get high package amount. this may some times leads to losses for the Govt.

BOT projects are difficult to extend or repairs as each private company has their own way of constructing.

There is a chance of grabbing the valuable Govt lands for the construction. These all can be saved if govt involves, thereby ticket fares can be decreased so that purpose is served. In one Sentence, Govt have to handle large govt lands to private companies in the future if they nod for BOT projects as the private companies are the owners.

Conclusion: Only central & State Govt are the owners of future metro projects as BOT projects leads to more trouble in the future.

Both Central & State Govt s must involve in the metro projects. Only State Govt ownership also doesn't help much as it lacks the uniformity among the states.

This also helps to encourage the manufactures and producers in India.

BTO

I would like to add on the issue of What Rajesh told in class.
in context with doing a BTO.to go about doing a BTO , Build-Transfer-Operate. Building a infrastructure by the private sector and transferring it to public sector and the operation through the same private sector.
one thing when the Govt.raises the tax during transfer , can hold good, instead of private players raising the tax and getting vast opposition.
Also giving the operations and maintenance to the same private sector will be more efficient, than giving to another private player who might complain about the standards of the infrastructure and quality issues. also such a move would ensure quality standards, or other wise when two players one for building and another for operation might subsidize the quality at the cost of other.

PPPs in the USA

I recently read this article in the New York Times that talks about the perception of PPPs in the USA. The article makes for very interesting reading because almost all the issues mentioned are identical to those currently faced in India. For instance the article talks about opposition to private ownership of roads, reservations about government "selling out" to private companies and so on. Yet, the USA also seems to face the same problems with respect to crumbling infrastructure and lack of financial resources. Developed or developing country, PPP issues seem to be quite similar!

SEZ BY GVK IN TAMIL NADU

This is article from times of india (20/8/08) . IT shows interest of TIDCO in development of SEZ.
Gvk company offered six times of actual value of land and also training and job opportunities for those who sold the land. I think these offers made people to sell land voluntarily. One more interesting aspect is pondicherry govt promised to supply power to the SEZ. If govt provides support in all aspects i think India will be on par with China in few years.

Problems in Power

I read a very interesting article this morning in the Hindu Business line on States going back on power contracts that they signed with private power providers.

We will talk about this a lot more when we get into PPPs, particularly when we discuss the Dabhol example. However it might be interesting for all of you to see the political dimensions of the infrastructure problem. The article says that the new Meghalaya government cancelled a contract entered into by the old government on the grounds that it was a "violation of the states policy"! The moral of the story is that you might have demand (a need for, or a lack of power), and you might have supply (private power providers), but other social/political/legal/environmental issues can easily scuttle the project!

Comments?

PPP in IRRIGATION

We have seen in one of the classes that in India there has been 0% PPP till now in irrigation. But its interesting to see that the worlds first PPP irrigation project started in Morocco in 2004. Here is the article.

World's first PPP irrigation project for Morocco

Available online 7 October 2004.

The Moroccan government has chosen a private partner for the planned public private partnership (PPP) irrigation project in the citrus-growing area of Guerdane, Taroudant province.

This Guerdane project is the first PPP irrigation project in the world.

Surface water is urgently needed for irrigated citrus farming in the 10 000 hectare Guerdane perimeter, which currently depends largely on the extraction of rapidly diminishing groundwater supplies drawn up from the Souss basin.

The bid for the Guerdane PPP irrigation project was won by a consortium led by Omnium Nord-Africain (ONA), a Moroccan industrial conglomerate. As part of its contractual obligations, the ONA-led consortium will enter into a 30-year concession for the construction, co-financing, and management of an irrigation network. The network will channel water from a dam complex, located 60 miles from Guerdane, to 600 citrus farmers. The Guerdane irrigation project will cost an estimated US$85 million to build.

Reference: science direct doi:10.1016/S1359-6128(04)00448-3
Also a good pdf on PPP in Irrigation is available here :http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/30/0/37739223.pdf

Banks & Indian Infrastructure Projects

Recently, the India Infrastructure Company Ltd (IIFCL) has bagged sovereign guarantees for raising Rs 5,000 crore for funding big-ticket projects in the country and some MoUs were signed by IIFCL with the three public sector banks — Canara Bank, Vijaya Bank and Syndicate Bank, with an option of raising the funds either from the domestic or international markets.

This will be also done though several global venture capital funds by extending the funds to the IIFCL either direct debt or in the form of equity.

IIFCL's funding for projects would be in the form of direct participation in project loan syndications along with the banks or in the form of refinancing support to the lending institutions. This was because bank finance for infrastructure was likely to face asset liability mismatch problems in view of the long lending tenures. The MoUs with the three banks involved providing IIFCL's support in their project lending efforts. This included participation in big-ticket loan syndications. IIFCL would function on the basis of the credit appraisal and due diligence reports of the banks.

Till date, Canara Bank was lead bank in 13 projects, Syndicate Bank was the lead in four projects and Vijaya Bank was the syndicate leader in two projects. So far, IIFCL had signed 10 MoUs with banks and financial institutions. Banks such as Canara Bank and Vijaya Bank already have substantial exposures in infrastructure projects that include power, roads, telecommunication and urban projects. as for instance, Canara Bank now has an exposure of Rs 12,000 crore in the sector and it intended pushing up this figure to Rs 20,000 crore by this year end. Vijaya Bank's exposure is Rs 3,500 crore in the sector.

Some concerns like assets liability mismatches (ALM), other lending risks, risks in project financing, the risks involved interest, liquidity and credit risks etc. could be eliminated with the participation of IIFCL, as ther would be no fixed rate lending for projects. Lending would be on commercial terms, that could involve floating or periodic resets in loan covenants.

The curent statistics reveal that funding requirements for infrastructure was estimated at $360 billion or about Rs 3 lakh crore per annum. Even assuming a conservative debt equity ratio of 3:1, bank funding would have to be at least Rs 2.25 lakh crore each year. As per reports, these investments in infrastructure were necessary to sustain the high GDP growth of 9 per cent.

Hence, I feel that there is no risk associated with the funding source since as mentioned above, small capped players will play their role safely with the aid of big players like IIFCL.

Explicitly modern concession agreements speak about the significant role played by lenders in deciding the flow of funds and ensuring their right and timely utilization. Effective implementation of 'Equador Principles' in Indian Infrastructure would fetch long term benefits. Lenders ofcourse would be able to contribute to streamline the projects since they are a fundamental part of Project building. The Government has also realized these facts and would be keen to keep up with the pace of FDIs and hence should encourage more participation of International + National Financial Institutions in Indian Infrastructure Projects.

It is upto the Policy Makers and Decision Imposers to take an advantage of this current scenario before the fruits are ripped off!!!!

Negotiations....

There is no doubt that pre-planning and indepth analysis will definitely lead to making project a success. When we deal with construction Projects, we may encounter 'N' no. of parties with their 'N' different opinions. Its very difficult to come to conclusive terms. So often disputes arises and 'negotiations' become a very deterministic tool to approach the problem / difference of opinions.

Time is the essence of any project but as long as time is utilized effectively in resolving the issues, the project success can still be guaranteed. The main theme behind negotiations lie in understanding the issue at the root level rather than simply blabbering about issues. Most of the times issues arise due to miscommunication, false information, misconceptions, incomplete data, etc. that could be exemplified by our case studies. Conoco and NGOs could have used efficient and fair negotiations with the indegenous people to come at consensus. At times, the absence of regulatory or mediatory agency could help in sorting out the matter. It can be stated from the "Game" that was demonstrated last week.

People should be really aware about their requirements and they should consult the right people in right way by means of right negotiations at the right time.

Some of the organizational behaviour qualities like attitude, leadership, teams, cross functional groups, can highly influence the 'tactics of negotiation', which if utilized in proper direction, could fetch successful results.

The successful married life of couples who understand and adjust with each other and negotiate clearly to resolve their problems, can be a paradigm for the success of negotiations on construction projects.

multi cultural projects

hi all,
There's an interesting article about the risks faced in a multi-cultural venture in an infratructural project. There has been a rise of multicultural project teams, widely separated by geography with team members from different cultures and backgrounds working together to achieve a common objective, in past few years. The key factors affect the success of these projects can be as follows:

• The lack of physical proximity is the first key factor. The geographical separation of a project team poses difficulties of communication.
• For the project manager of a multicultural project, there can be difficulties in assessing the skills and competencies of team players. Training and education standards and the relative value of qualifications can be very different in different parts of the world. Job methods vary and can be different because of specific local conditions such as working in heat, earthquake risk or local trade practices.
• Mobility can be a problem that affects competence: it can be difficult to find people who can work effectively away from their home environment.
• Another key issue affecting multicultural project teams is language. A project must have a common language to ensure a common understanding. In many situations, this means that non-native speakers are working in their second or third language with a consequential loss of effectiveness, as well as increased risk of mistakes or misunderstanding. In situations where interpreters or translators are required, this has the effect of significantly slowing down the whole communication process and is very costly. Even where team members of different nationalities speak the same language, there can be difficulties. Words in American English can have totally different meanings to English in the UK, whilst conventions and abbreviations can often be very different.
• Risk is present in all projects but becomes more pronounced in global projects where there are often new risks, particularly if the project is being built in a part of the world where security is an issue. In some countries, contract law is not well established and other local laws may not be well understood by other nationalities.
• Risks in communications and risks arising from misunderstandings and misinterpretation are much greater.
• Risks in communications and risks arising from misunderstandings and misinterpretation are much greater.
• There are differences of standards in many countries that can extend to attitudes towards health and safety. Design standards can vary and local factors such as climate, topography and infrastructure can dramatically affect a project. Local customs can also be bewildering, especially for staff living overseas where there might be different attitudes towards gifts, entertainment and hours of work.
• In many countries of the world, different ethical standards apply. This affects attitudes towards the law and, indeed, national laws can be very different in different territories. In some countries, bribery and corruption have become institutionalised and are the only means by which some local officials can earn a living.

PPPs in US infrastructure

This months issue of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management brought out by the American Society of Civil Engineers has an interesting article on the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in US infrastructure projects.

As we all know, most infrastructure in the US is quite old and is in great need of renewal and replacement. PPP is an efficient way of mobilizing resources and achieving optimal project performance. So how many of the infrastructure projects in the US are done through the PPP mode?

The authors conduct a survey and find out that only 12% of the organizations surveyed have used BOTs or PPPs to build infrastructure!! The authors then attempt to understand why the other 88% continue to use conventional modes of public finance and come up with several explanations. A common thread that runs through these explanations is a lack of capacity within public agencies and a lack of exposure to PPP's, thereby making the implementing agencies a little skeptical of the overall potential of PPPs. In addition, the US also has no laws on PPPs unlike the Model Concession Agreements in India.

The research done in this paper is not very rigorous - the method of analysis is merely a straight aggregation and averaging of survey data. However, what is interesting is that the lack of capacity (i.e. understanding, know-how of fundamentals) as regards PPP leads to an over-reliance on public procurement even in developed countries. Many of the same arguments explain why there is a lot of rhetoric on PPPs in India, but relatively few projects that are actually implemented in this fashion.

What can we do to improve the situation? Comments?

The bujagali project: what is happening?

The bujagali project is spreading its success among the locals. The locals started to eek out a living by setting up food-stalls near the site.The landlords have started to rent their lands near the site. People are going for loans to set up businesses and improve their living standards.The article below explains it! http://allafrica.com/stories/200710031232.html


another related article i found regarding the project financing were
http://allafrica.com/stories/200710021168.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200710030062.html

This project is just taking shape! hope there is a lot in it for the Ugandans!!!

Setusamudram Ship Canal Project

Hello all.
If you remember, sir talked about the viability of the Setu Samudram project in terms of reducing the time of navigation in the last class. I think this makes a good case study for IPM course!
Here is my understanding of the project.

• The project does not serve the very purpose it is being done! It will reduce the travel distance by only 120 nautical miles. And usually the ships travel at 12-13 knot speed. But when it enters setu samudram waters, they have to slow down to half of the speed. This ultimately means saving of only around 1 hr 30 mins of travel time, if the same ship had gone via normal route around Sri Lanka. Now the question is, is it worth spending Rs. 2400 crores on this project just to save 1.5 hrs? and remember, no ship will pay a huge toll and use this shipping canal. The project, if realized, will be an economic disaster.
  
• Next worst thing is the effect on the marine ecology. The coral reef will be completely destroyed by dredging of the sea bed. These are the coral reefs that slowed down the Tsunami waves and lessened the effect of it on to the other side of Indian coast. Not only that. The water surrounding the island nation of Sri Lanka is the habitat for very rare species of whale which is on the verge of extinction. Their habitat will be severely affected by this project.
• Now onto the social impact of the project. Thousands of fishermen have to quit fishing and also the place, which is their habitat for hundreds of years. There is absolutely no rehabilitation plan so far being thought of for them. And the govt is hardly listening to their woes.
• There is also zero planning on the part of the parties involved in the dredging as to where to dump the excavated soil. The contract document says, it will be dumped in some safe place. But what is that place? where it is? how to transport the soil to that place? what are the aftermaths of dumping those thousands of tonnes of soil from sea bed on to the land? No answer what so ever.
• In terms of strategic gains, India is gaining only 1 out of 10 or even less. The Setusamudram area on to the Lanka side has a lethal sea-bourne marine unit of LTTE. The consequence of any friction with LTTE - I need not tell it!
  
• In fact, an issue like this shows how poorly we are managing our strategies. China has already built naval control points all around India. Pakistan has been of great support and help to China. China is building an ultra modern naval point off the Karachi shore, to control West part of India. It already has one such base in one of the Myanmar islands, and is closely watching the activities at Chandipur, the missile karma-bhoomi of India. And it is no secret many of the LTTE weapons are China made!!
• It is a nonsense argument that the project will bring economic prosperity to Tamil Nadu. It will only bring disasters!

• one China friendly 'National Newspaper of India' along with its buddy blind politicians of Tamil Nadu is supporting the project so much as if without this there wont be any progress in Tamil Nadu! how to stop this misguidance?
  
• where are the NGOs, Arundhati Roy and Medha Pathkar?!
• why are the govts silent on these aspects? what are the possible solutions to the socio - economic - environmental issues?