Each infrastructure project plays an integral role in nation-building. It forms the backbone of trade and development, and catalyses growth. Considering its scale, complexity of nature, involvement of multiple stakeholders and clearances, each project brings a unique set of challenges.

Thus, innovation to find tailor-made solutions which accurately predict future demand and meet specific objectives, is crucial for success and long-term viability. Innovation helps tackle societal challenges. Innovation also requires a space to be prototyped so that it can be fine-tuned, tested, customised and industrialised.

The complementary strengths of public and private sectors are critical to finding the right balance between commercial viability and societal good. The same has been realised by governments across the world, including India, as it moves from being a sole planner, implementer and regulator to becoming a facilitator. At the same time, it helps unlock private investment infrastructure as well as quick and professional decision making.

At the same time, under Public-Private Partnerhsip (PPP) models, it is the consumer – the average citizen of the country - who ultimately pays for the project, based on usage. This not only helps minimise taxpayer’s money in initial capital investment, but also prioritise the project specifications tailored to the needs of the public, thus ensuring maximum utilisation and thereby commercial viability.

In India, PPPs have already transformed several key sectors. Initially seen in transport infrastructures such as airports, roads, ports etc., it is now the preferred mode of infrastructure building in diverse sectors such as defence & aerospace, waste management, renewable & clean energy, digital & telecommunications and much more.

Despite the frantic pace of infrastructure building seen over the last decade under various schemes such as SagarMala, BharatMala, a lot more needs to be done. In fact, a recent report by World Bank highlighted that India would need to invest USD 840 billion over the next 15 years on its urban infrastructure.

The same report also notes that private investment in India towards urban infrastructure accounts for only 5% of the total with the rest coming from central, state and local governments. However, with the government investing USD 16 billion in 2018, out of the required USD 55 billion, the role of the private sector needs to massively rise.

Over the last 5 years, the highest investments have been made by Sovereign Wealth Funds (USD 84 billion), followed by Real Estate Investment Trusts (USD 38 billion) and Private Equity Funds (USD 24 billion).

As India embarks on this nation-building spree, it creates massive opportunities for Europe. As global leaders in sustainability, innovation, research and academia with a proclivity to work in a partnership-based approach, European partners can aid technology transfer & sharing along with required handholding to create unique project structures. European technologies are heavily deployed across the country and command good trust and acceptability amongusers. In addition, investments from public and private European investors would not only help meet the funding requirements of a growing India, but also generate significantly higher rates of Return-on-Investment (ROI).

As facilitators of strategic partnerships in the Europe-India business corridor, EBTC is keen on bringing Europe’s forward -thinking approach to nurturing innovation in India and furthering the PPP approach.

EBTC’s Vincent van Noord picked up a conversation with PPP expert, Mr. Ajay Saxena. Mr. Saxena says, "If there is a new economic revolution coming, it will only come through PPP." With this bold statement, he continues his conversation about sectors which have developed at a rapid pace owing to successful PPP and what does a successful PPP look like. Mr. Saxena is of the firm opinion that a well-structured project with evenly allocated risk projections between the public-private entity is the first step toward a success story. He also goes on to predict which sectors in India can highly benefit from the PPP model.

The world population is currently 8 billion strong. Out of which more than half, which is 56% of the population lives in cities. By 2050, the population of urban spaces is pegged to double which loosely translates to 7 out of every 10 people may soon be urban inhabitants. Given the projections, it is now more than ever that government bodies, academia, private players as well as citizens should concern themselves with making urban areas more liveable from sustainability as well as inclusivity perspectives.

The Living Lab at IIIT, Hyderabad is one such space which fosters innovation keeping emerging and contemporary urban problems in mind. It can also be compared to European small-scale testing units based on PPP principles, since the Living Lab is constantly seeking public as well as private players to partner with the Lab. As the conversation with Mr. Saxena continues, he elaborates on the role that PPP can play in fostering this pressing mission.

In continuing our focus on contemporary urban problems, waste management is one such issue that is constantly being approached from various angles. PPP have been an attempted approach in several urban spaces in India, in some places it has worked and others it hasn’t.

Traditional waste management techniques have posed several problems for urban areas. Large landfills and pockets of litter, make for ghastly sights across sprawling urban neighbourhoods. Such landfills also pose a major safety hazard as they can cause large fires. It is also an emitter of greenhouse gases, especially methane.

Circular waste management techniques have thus become increasingly important for cities. This includes recycling of dry waste, composting as well as waste to energy plants. As modern techniques realise the commercial value of traditional waste, several commercially-viable PPP models can be explored in this domain.

Mr. Ajay Saxena holds the subject of waste management close to his heart and being an expert in PPP, he has several opinions on the matter. He elaborates on the reasons why PPP models did not work for a considerable amount of time in the waste management sector. However, he leaves us on a hopeful note when he says that each of those failures have taught us something and newer PPP models account for these discoveries.

Mr. Ajay Saxena is a noted PPP expert with over 25 years of experience with diverse projects. He has had significant stints with the Asian Development Bank and several organisations under the Maharashtra government. Mr. Saxena is also part of the senior expert pool at EBTC.