QUESTION 8
GS3
12.5 marks
Explain how Public-Private Partnership arrangements in long-gestation infrastructure projects can transfer unsustainable liabilities to the future. What arrangements need to be put in place to ensure that successive generations’ capacities are not compromised?
WRITE IN
9 min
200 words
What the examiner wants
Explain how long-gestation PPPs shift unsustainable liabilities to the future and suggest safeguards.
ExplainMake clear how and why it happens: causes, process, and an example for each point.
Demand-wise check
- 1Mechanisms: contingent liabilities (guarantees, termination payments), annuity commitments, aggressive bidding and renegotiation, user fee escalations, NPAs in banks≈35 words
- 2Examples: stalled highway projects, power projects, airport tariffs≈35 words
- 3Safeguards: disclose contingent liabilities, independent regulator, renegotiation framework, risk sharing, viability gap funding, fiscal rules≈35 words
- 4New models: Hybrid Annuity Model, InvITs≈35 words
Open in about 30 words and close in about 30.
Answer plan
PPP conceptHow liabilities shiftExamplesSafeguardsConclusion
Where marks usually go
- Explaining PPP generally without the intergenerational angle
- Missing the Kelkar Committee
Draw this
- Timeline: project start → future liabilities
Value addition
- CommitteeKelkar Committee (2015) on revitalising PPP recommended an independent regulator, renegotiation framework and avoiding Swiss challenge.Kelkar Committee, 2015
- SchemeHybrid Annuity Model (2016) for highways splits cost 40:60 between government and developer.MoRTH, 2016
Mapped topper copies
Reviewed public-source references related to this PYQ. Same-syllabus references are labelled separately.
- Mayank Purohit · AIR 33 · Page 3 ↗Same syllabus reference
- Shakti Dubey · AIR 1 · Page 23 ↗Same syllabus reference
- Aniket Ranjan · AIR 48 · Page 26 ↗Same syllabus reference
- Mayank Purohit · AIR 33 · Page 13 ↗Same syllabus reference
Links open original public sources. MainsBuddy does not host these answer sheets.
Next: plan for one minute, write it in 9 minutes, then get it checked.