Strategies to enhance sustainability of public private partnership procurement process for infrastructure development

Abstract

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been used as one of the preferred modes for infrastructure development since the last two decades in India. The PPP programme in India, though, has stabilized significantly with lessons learnt from the experience of implementing PPP projects, but the PPPs in India still suffers from certain shortfalls which could be related to the failure to meet many aspects of sustainable development (SD) principles. One of the ways to overcome these shortfalls could to modify the procurement process so as to fulfil the principles of SD even through PPP route. The main aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework highlighting the strategies for integrating sustainability principles in procurement process of PPP projects. Content analysis on existing literatures, research reports, and case studies on PPP projects has been adopted to first identify the shortfalls in PPP process and, secondly, examine the possible strategies from best practices being adopted in PPP projects executed all over the world. The preliminary framework on how to integrate the principles of sustainability is then conceptualized explaining how the formulated strategies can be integrated into PPP process. Finally, focused interviews with the key stakeholders of PPP projects have been undertaken to assess the feasibility of the preliminary framework. The preliminary findings from the study indicate the opportunities to promote SD even through PPP route if procurement process is enhanced with respect to the following aspects by relooking the PPP process from the perspective of SD concepts and principles: stakeholder’s participation, environment impact assessment, value for money analysis, user’s charges and risk allocation policies, transaction and bidding cost, and bid evaluation criteria. The proposed framework will be a useful tool for the government to restructure the PPP procurement process in India to fulfil the SD goals, which are being currently pursued by the government rigorously.