Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Did I read Nitin Gadkari's mind?

I wrote yesterday that it was futile to pin too much hope on PPPs in the present situation in which the model was broke. Along comes the following statement by Nitin Gadkari on how the government intends to proceed with road projects:
In a significant shift of policy, he (Nitin Gadkari) also said that public private partnership (PPP) model was not feasible at present for award of road projects due to a host of issues "created by the previous government" and that schemes will be bid out on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode.
"Projects were bid out by previous government without even 10 per cent of the required land acquisition. Work could not start on the project where financial closure took place two years back. Banks withdrew financial closure...PPP mode is not possible now. We will work on EPC model for a few years," he said.
Unlike PPP model where the private sector has to fund the road building, in the EPC model, the government funds a highway, with private firms designing and building the road.

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