Political & financial woes block state-level infra PPPs
State chief ministers and chief secretaries with whom FE interacted on the sidelines of the National Development Council meeting on Thursday were of the unanimous view that in most cases, attracting private investments won’t be a viable option for creating infrastructure and the Centre has to pitch in with the lion’s share of funds. They want the Centre to step up public spending in infrastructure.
Jharkhand CM Arjun Munda said: “For a state like ours which is naxal-infested, private players don’t want to invest in infrastructure. How will we create infrastructure then? The UPA government says the stress has to be on the PPP model in building infrastructure but I don’t think it would be viable for us. Anyway, we are demanding a special status for our state.”
The Planing Commission had said that out of $1-trillion investments envisaged during the current Plan, 50% must come from the private sector as the government faced severe resource problems. A lot of these private investments have to come in state-sector projects.
“Though the public private partnership (PPP) model has performed well in our state, public spending in infrastructure must be increased by the Centre by giving us (states) a higher share from their tax revenues,” Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar
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