Public and private sector partnerships for correcting infrastructure bottleneck in India

Transport infrastructure like road and rail plays a critical role in contributing to the sustainable economic growth and development of a country and overall smooth functioning of the economy. The economic growth and development of a country depends on the development of economic and social (health, education) infrastructure (parikh 1997; Charles, 2003). The provision of efficient and effective transport infrastructure helps in the alleviation of poverty and generation of employment in a developing country. The key objective of India's tenth Five Year plan of 2002-07, is to achieve a higher economic growth rate of 8 per cent, along with other social objectives (puri 2003, p.56). Public-private partnerships are necessary to overcome the existing deficiency in economic infrastructnre. This paper focuses on the road and rail infrastructnre necessary for the development of agriculture and industry in India, and growing service sectors like tourism. Agriculture and industry production requires water, power, fmance, banking and insurance, information and communication technologies, credit and transport facilities, machinery and equipment, marketing and management facilities. Over and above these, skilled human resources to manage these facilities are essential for the growth and development of a developing nation. Road and rail are particularly critical infrastructure for the development process. A transport network across the length and breadth of the country is vital for the movement of raw materials, goods and people. Transport helps to link and broaden the markets for goods and makes it possible to reap the benefits of economies of scale in production. The more extensive large scale production across sectors of the economy, a more expansive network of road/rail transport and coordination will be necessary to int$ate them. While some regions may have abundant raw material like minerals, forestry and agricultural resources, they cannot be developed if they continue to be isolated, remote and inaccessible.