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.

Infrastructure is the critical backbone of any nation. India´s deficiencies in this regard, despite huge subsidies by the government, are very well known - whether it be in respect of highways and railways, housing, ports, power or water supply.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) has made significant efforts to put the sector on a growth trajectory. While there has been noticeable improvement, a more collaborative endeavour is sought to bring about the desired effect.

Though investment in infrastructure is expected to touch $1,025 billion in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-17), many hurdles are choking investment inflows despite the government´s overdrive to attract funds. The government´s recent decision to open up the railway sector to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

The Union Government will review model concession agreements (MCAs) for public private partnership (PPP) projects across sectors to assess the possibility of moving from a cost-plus basis to predetermined rates while awarding contracts

It seems controllable and uncontrollable factors have converged on the infrastructure sector, causing lenders and investors to step back in their plans. Ranjit Manjarekar, COO Infrastructure Finance, Tata Capital, tells Infrastructure Today that lack of visibility of returns, stemming from uncertainties, is a big dampener, but tells us how his firm is manoeuvring around the roadblocks to identify the right segments to go after.

The Model Concession Agreement (MCA) for National Highway development, which attracted aggressive bids soon after it was revised in 2009, was more of a first draft that also led to delays, disputes and project exits. As a cascading effect, this has resulted in fewer takers for new projects. Janaki Krishnamoorthi examines the revisions that are due in the MCA for highways.

BK Chaturvedi, Member of the Planning Commission of India, is in the hot seat. It was his draft of the original MCA in roads that made all the difference to PPP in roads. Now it´s time to debug that document, he tells Garima P. Have investors been withdrawing on account of the existing Model Concession Agreement (MCA) for highways? Quite a few people have been attacking the MCA saying that provisions need to be changed. Now that the economy is not doing well, it is easy to blame the MCA for

Amid top domain experts, decision makers and policy enablers, this mega event brought to the fore the pressing challenges facing the sector and offered many practical remedies, report MANAS R BASTIA and Shriyal Sethumadhavan.