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Public Private Partnerships (PPPs): Analysing
the factors behind their growth
The economic perspective in favour of PPP
is that they present an attractive alternative to the market and contractualised
relationships and are viewed to be broader in scope than privatisation and a
qualitative leap from traditional contracting
The term ‘Public Private Partnership’
or ‘PPP’ has become a buzzword of late in the policy circles, and is being
increasingly resorted to as a preferred medium for provisioning of public
services both within the industrialised and low-income countries. While the PPPs
are more commonly found in the transport infrastructure sector, such as roads,
airports, and ports (primarily due to the commercial pricing models), they are
also invoked in water supply and sanitation, tourism, education, health, and
other social sector programmes, albeit to a lesser degree. A significant difference is however observed in the nature of PPPs
across these sectors. In many cases
they appear to be glorified forms
of service level agreements rather than ‘partnerships’ as are defined in the normative literature on PPPs.
