The union road transport and highways ministry will implement the largest chunk of public private partnership (PPP) project pipeline announced by the union finance ministry on Tuesday. Out of the total Central PPP pipeline of 232 projects worth ₹13.15 lakh crore, the ministry will implement 108 PPP projects worth ₹8.76 lakh crore.

The union ministry of finance announced a pipeline of 852 PPP projects worth ₹17 lakh crore for the next three years. 

Out of the total 852 projects to be taken up on PPP basis in the pipeline, 232 are Central government projects worth ₹13.15 lakh crore, while 620 projects worth ₹3.84 lakh crore will be taken up by the states and union territories.

Port and shipping, railways bag next big PPP chunk

Next in line after the highways ministry is the ministry of power, which will implement 46 PPP projects worth ₹3.4 lakh crore. Ministry of ports and shipping comes next with PPP investment worth ₹37,644 lakh crore, while railways will implement 13 PPP projects worth around ₹30,903 crore, as per the pipeline announced by the ministry of finance yesterday. 

It may be noted that ministry of highways, power, railways and ports and shipping account for about 97% of the central PPP pipeline of ₹13.15 lakh crore. It may be noted that since large number of highway PPP projects in the pipeline may pertain to the monetisation and securitisation currently happening on the existing highway infrastructure, and may not necessarily mean fresh PPP bidding. It will be clear once more details are available from the ministry.

Civil aviation gives PPP opportunity a miss 

Meanwhile, the civil aviation ministry will implement 11 PPP projects worth ₹2,262 crore, and ministry of petroleum will implement one project on PPP worth ₹8,743 crore. 

Department of water development, and Ganga rejuvenation will take up 29 projects to the tune of ₹12,253 crore.

New projects in the pipeline a concern? 

This is a crucial move and will help reinvigorate private sector capital investment. But it remains to be seen how much will the central government commit in the form of viability gap funding for these projects. At a 40% viability gap funding, this would translate into investments to the tune of about Rs 10 lakh crore by the private sector in the next three years. 

"In pursuance of the Union Budget 2025-26 announcement, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance, has created a three-year Public Private Partnership (PPP) project pipeline," said a release from the ministry of finance yesterday.