Niti Aayog chief says govt should exit infra, jails, schools
The government needs to exit infrastructure projects and even look at handing over jails, schools and colleges to the private sector, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Wednesday.
At the same time, he was highly critical of India’s private sector, terming it as “most irrational” and “insensitive”.
Kant said it messed up projects by aggressive bidding and creating the current crisis in the public private partnership (PPP) model.
“The government has done a lot of big projects but it not good at operation and maintenance. Therefore, the government must start the process of reverse BOT (build, operate and transfer), must sell out projects and let the private sector handle it,” he said addressing a summit organised by industry body Ficci.
Citing the example of dirty bathrooms at airports, which fall under the Airport Authority of India, he said: “We must bring in the private sector. That is the fastest way to bring in private sector and bring private sector money back in infrastructure. These projects are fully de-risked.”
He added: “The country needs to move into new areas of PPP. There is no need where jails, schools, colleges should be run in government sector. At least experience of many countries like Canada and Australia shows that private sector is capable of doing very good work in creation of quality infrastructure ...”
Kant also blamed the private sector saying there are hundreds of examples where private sector has gone for aggressive bidding and did not bother to do due-diligence . “Private sector has performed very badly... It is most irrational, insensitive I have seen, Kant said citing the example of aggressive bidding in highways and coal sectors.
Kant also stressed the need of restructuring the model concession agreement so that the private sector gets more incentives.