Don't bring public-private partnership projects under CAG, RTI: GMR

NEW DELHI: Airports-to-power conglomerate GMR Group has warned that bringing public-private partnership (PPP) projects under the ambit of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Right to Information law could spell the death knell for private investments into infrastructure projects.

Sidharath Kapur, chief financial officer (airports) at the GMR Group, said the current policy environment makes it difficult for the private sector to chip in with half of India's $1-trillion target for infrastructure investments over the next five years.

"Infrastructure companies have suffered - bottom line and stock prices are down, foreign investors have lost faith in the Indian story," Kapur said at an infrastructure conclave hosted by the PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Monday. "You have issues like CAG and government policy in newspapers everyday. In this environment, can a developer or a foreign investor stretch his neck out and look at an infrastructure investment?"

Referring to the 'talk' of bringing PPP projects under the CAG and the information disclosure law, Kapur warned that this is a "very retrograde" step. "If that happens, you will actually sign (away) the entire entrepreneurship and flexibility of a private entrepreneur... then why have PPPs? You might as well let the project be developed by the public sector," he said.

Stressing that he is not questioning the requirement of CAG audits, Kapur suggested that CAG approvals must come upfront before a PPP project starts rather than after their implementation has begun.