How PPP can be help Digital India Campaign a Success

Undoubtedly, internet is one of the greatest stories of mankind. In today's digital age it has become essential that people should be able to access information and upgrade skills using digital devices. Besides, the launch of the Digital India initiative by Indian government has only reiterated a belief that digitization is the key to future success. But the huge and varied demographics of India are a huge challenge.

It won't be easy for government to implement this initiative at such a large scale without external help. One of the best options it can use is Public Private Partnerships or PPP as it is quite often called.In this article, we look at how PPP can help Indian government to achieve its goal of making India digital.

Current Situation:
As per industry projections, India will be home to about 526 million internet users and more than 105 billion devices by 2018. While this is great news for government's campaign for digitizing India, it does not possess all the resources required to meet the demands of implementing its digitization campaign. This offers a huge opportunity for the private players to help government and gain some mileage for themselves too.

We look at the benefits of this type of partnerships for digital India initiative

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Benefits of PPP for Digital India:
Efficiency is something that is highly valued by the users and is one of the crucial factors in achieving success in today's competitive market. "The most important thing that a private player will bring to the table is efficiency" says Mr. Arun Lakhani, MD Vishvaraj Infrastructure and advisor to Government on PPP. Yes, funding will also be a crucial part but we all know efficiency is not the forte of the government.

As mentioned earlier, the number of internet users in India is rising steadily. Thanks to PPP, the private players will be able to avail of the government resources that will help them achieve sustainability and scalability.

Another important benefit of PPP for digitization process is that government will be able to have access to new, innovative ideas and technology. PPPs will help government and IT industry to improve the information ecosystem that will transform city operations.

To see how this works we look at the example of an app developed for Chicago city. The app regularly publishes the schedule of sweepers that lets the citizen know whether a sweeper is coming along or not.

The government IT spending is about $7.2 Billion and a huge portion of this amount will be for digital India campaign. PPPs will enable the government to roll out various initiatives on the basis of strong technology infrastructure that will be provided by private players.

Although we can be swept away by the positives of PPP, there are yet problems that plague it. Next up we look at what these problems are.

Problems faced by PPP in Digital India:
One of the biggest issues is that PPP for. It is not surprising to IT & technology is a new proposition for the Government. See that PPP is more related with domains like defence and infrastructure. One does not come across PPPs for IT sector that often.

Another problem PPPs face is the presence of outdated laws and policies that are currently in practice. In its early days, funding for PPP was not that easy. Although government has noticed this issue recently it has now amended laws pertaining to funding.

As is the case with PPPs in other sectors, there are considerable risks for private players who are keen to participate in such an endeavour. But this can no longer be a reason to not participate in such endeavours. Government has now taken initiatives aimed at minimizing such risks for private players.

India has made progress in key developmental areas one of which is IT and the time is now ripe to make it count. If we want to successfully implement digital India campaign then PPPs are key to it.

Driving Innovation through PPP

Undoubtedly, innovation is the key to economic development. It is also a fact that small enterprises have proved to be a leading source of innovation. They have become one of the keys contributors. Realizing this potential of small businesses, the Government has also taken initiatives, such as Public Private Partnerships (PPP), that encourage them to participate in contributing to the development of the nation through innovation.

In this article, we look at how PPPs can be used as an effective tool for innovation.

PPP and Innovation:

"There is no denying that the private sector is way ahead of the public sector as far as innovation is concerned. Governments must capitalize on this. Public Private Partnerships opens up new opportunities for innovation and stimulates demand for innovation in multiple sectors such as infrastructure, medicine, science, agriculture etc" says Mr. Arun Lakhani, MD Vishvaraj Infrastructure and leading authority on PPPs.

PPPs can play a key role in not only solving a problem but doing it innovatively. To understand how, we can look at a very common problem that is faced by urban cities around the world; traffic congestion.

For cities like Mumbai, Delhi and other metro cities, the problem is not just insufficient roads but also handling of huge traffic inflow. Constructing more roads might help to some extent but it won’t solve the issue entirely as traffic will keep increasing with economic growth.

"There is a need for an innovative solution that will minimize or eliminate traffic congestion and utilize the existing roads better. This is where government can partner up with private companies to solve this issue" says Mr. Lakhani.

A real life example of such a partnership can be seen in Chinese city Tiajin which faced severe traffic congestion problem. The city, in collaboration with World Economic Forum’s Future of Urban Development & Services (FUDS) Initiative achieved its goal of drastically minimizing the traffic problem.

The goal was achieved through an intelligent transportation system (ITS) technology which uses sensors which provide drivers with real-time traffic information that will enable them to avoid routes with heavy traffic.

Benefits of using PPP for innovation:

• Helps to attract private sector expertise which is so essential for innovation
• Optimize the use of available knowledge
• Pooling of resources can help to address issues that cannot be addressed by a single entity
• Provides a greater return on research funding
• Successfully addresses the issues so that commercialization of outcome is possible
• Create a competitive environment for open and transparent tenders in the implementation of innovative projects
• Offers a huge platform to apply innovations

Barriers for PPP:

• Lack of joint efforts by both the partners:
  It has been commonly observed that the Government is like a sleeping giant in PPP ventures. In fact, there is an attitude that once a private partner has been chosen, the work is done.
  
  
  Also, innovation is generally assumed to be a domain of private sector. If innovation is to be achieved, this cannot go on. There has to be joint effort by both the parties.

• Unnecessary interference by public partner (Government) in innovation process:
  Time and again we have seen how promising initiatives have gone off track thanks to interferences at every other stage of such ventures; especially political. It is not rare to see political parties trying to exert their influence on how PPP ventures shape up so that they can walk away with the credits.

• Unequal financial risks:
  This one is not too difficult to understand. Given the laidback attitude of the Government over the years towards PPPs, the private sector has always bourn the financial brunt of such ventures. This has proved to be a big hindrance in encouraging more private entities to participate in PPP. It is high time government takes steps to ease these inhibitions and fears of the private parties.
  
  
  PPPs definitely offer us an excellent channel of innovation that can be deliver high quality optimum results. There are countless ways PPPs can be utilized to not only solve problems but also achieve economic development through innovation and also improve our lives.