India-UK bridge: Government eyes push to roads, renewables

NEW DELHI: Government is pitching roads, renewables and rapid transit projects for development under the India-UK investment bridge and is willing to tailor the design based on feedback so that there is greater participation from global investors.

Representatives from the City of London Corporation, officials from Niti Aayog and other ministries and companies from the UK and India, including foreign companies operating in India, discussed how projects could be identified. Govt sources, however, said that the projects will not be given by nomination and companies from across the world, including the UK, will have to bid for them.

Sectors such as roads and highways have seen foreign players virtually vanish from the space and instead small Indian developers fill that space.

"We are receiving presentations from Indian partner companies and also from the UK companies. We have got major engineering firms like Mott Macdonald and Arup, which have global companies with huge global experience in infra projects. The plan is, between now and March next year, we are going to identify three projects with Indian govt which are likely to be in the sectors of roads, rapid transit and renewables.

"Once those are agreed, we will be bringing to the table the expertise that the project management firms can supply. In due course, we expect that to expand to capital investment and capital coming out of London and out of the UK to support PM Modi's sustainable transport strategy. This is a two-year agreement initially, but we hope that it would blossom into a long-term partnership between London and the Indian govt because the growth in India is so spectacular and so fast that India needs friend and partners to support in delivering infrastructure ambitions," said Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation. Hayward is the political leader of the entity.

He added that a project pipeline is being readied, while insisting that it has to be a "win-win deal" for both sides.

Hayward said that there is greater confidence in India now. "One of the challenges of this bridge is that British and other firms have had their fingers burnt. The whole market in India has developed or changed since those days. But, of course, the first thing is confidence building in the British companies that they are not going to get their fingers burnt."

Asked if a bilateral investment treaty that is acceptable to the UK was a pre-requisite, he said: "There are negotiations still in play. For this to succeed, the Indian govt has to make it as easy as possible for UK businesses to participate. If barriers are put up that are unacceptable, then it will not work. Regulatory certainty is important for everything, the world over."