The National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), a four-year plan introduced recently by the NDA Government involving a huge sum of Rs 6 lakh crore involves taking calculated risks. The idea, it is stated, is to “unlock the value in brownfield projects” by engaging the private sector through transferring to them the rights — not the ownership — in various projects and using the funds that accrue for strengthening the national infrastructure. The Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode in investments is being tried on a larger scale. Roads, railways and the power sector assets constitute over 66 per cent of the total estimated value of the assets to be monetized. The balance 34 per cent would involve telecom, mining, aviation, ports, natural gas and petroleum product pipelines etc. The PPP system has proven to be better compared to the misrule of PSUs by politicians and bureaucracy because there are better checks and balances.
The claim by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is that the revenues that would accrue from this initiative will give a big boost to the economy. She claimed that it would add value in terms of infrastructure build-up and explore innovative ways of private participation without a transfer of the government’s ownership of these entities. She stressed no land is involved in this initiative, and that the reference is to brownfield projects where investments have been made but the assets thereof are languishing or under-utilized. Optimum utilization is envisaged. The claim from the government is also that this is a globally tested model for development and that these assets will be offered as “concessions, as rights to operate and returned to the state after a given period.” This is easier said than done.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s eminent response was that the Modi government is selling off India’s strategic assets built over the past 70 years to the present dispensation’s cronies. Governments come and go every five years. The commitments that the present government makes in respect of these deals could, in the end result in advantaging the private sector. Those holding power are, admittedly, less smart than the business sharks. See the way they looted banks and scooted from the scene and kept cocking a snook at the government from safe havens abroad. Cases go on and on in courts, and dragging is the name of the game. The nation is into uncertain times. There is a sense that the government is taking extreme measures to raise funds and adopting shortcuts because it is not able to manage the national economy which is already battered by the pandemic.
