India has horrific water issues that go well beyond meters and domestic waste. However, with the use of automation, it is possible to avoid water theft, illegal connections and leakages and importantly, monitor water distribution.

We need to improve our infrastructure, and if someone asked, by when, the obvious answer will be yesterday! According to a study by S&P Global Ratings, the country´s poor infrastructure is the biggest hurdle to the government´s ´Make in India´ programme, and they went on to add that the infrastructure deficit is costing the nation up to 5 per cent of our GDP.

Vinayak Chatterjee, Chairman, Feedback Infra feels that the country has failed miserably on regulation, renegotiation, risk allocation and resourcing. He says that a comprehensive policy framework, including independent regulation, is required to make the PPP concept a success.

Indeed. From the mid-1990s, where we started with private sector involvement with power generation, and subsequently into mobile telephony and transport sector in the mid-2010s, we are easily the world´s largest PPP market. India has travelled a long way.

The fast growth of the Indian economy in recent years has placed increasing stress on physical infrastructure, such as electricity, railways, roads, ports, airports, irrigation, healthcare, water supply and sanitation systems, all of which already suffer from a substantial deficit

The private sector brings with it the benefit of private funding of the projects and efficiency of operations. ´Public-Private Partnership´ (PPP) has been a relatively flourishing model for infrastructure development in India.

Urban infrastructure is complex business. Rarely have we built any major world class infrastructure in our cities, which have had a good sustainable business case for private investment.

India is moving towards reviving the infrastructure sector by encouraging investments by private players and reinvigorating the sector through Public-Private Partnership (PPP). The government is also providing the much-needed push by increasing the budgetary allocation to Rs.2.21 lakh crore for key infrastructure areas, such as roads, railways and ports.

The experience left the planners wiser. And this was evident in the 65 kilometres of the first phase of the ambitious Delhi Metro Project getting completed a full two years nine months ahead of schedule in 2005, in a period of a little over eight years.