This first week of February just started in India and there are several topics in the public private partnerships industry that are raising some questions, doubts and comments.India is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the largest democracy in the world. It has such a necessity of infrastructure projects that makes it the paradise for construction corporations. Well, it is important to point out that sentence I wrote above about being the largest democracy in the world, we all know China's situation and of course they also need to develop big infrastructure projects but the legal PPP framework is just almost non existent in China (as for as I know, maybe some readers may give us another insight). The language thing is of major importance too.On the other hand, India is developing a very consistent PPP legislation. From my point of view the development is coming out very fast, maybe even too fast. But they are learning a lot on this. 2008 was not an easy year for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), they had a tough time implementing the National Highways Development Plan. Not many projects were awarded and private corporations did not will to bid for very risky projects. There were some key topics that have been changed by the NHAI and of crucial interest:

• The high interest rates and the credit crunch have delayed Infrastructure projects, thus project costs raised. Raw materials costs also raised. Obsviously there was a necessity for costs update.
• Private infrastructure companies involved in projects that come under the build, operate and transfer (BOT) model may get to charge tolls for three to five more years than originally agreed upon.
• New rules were set to revise toll rates every year that apply to all the projects based on the BOT model. Before toll rates couldn't be raised at all.

And all these changes it's what I mean when I write about PPP development in India. It's not everything about highways, there also PPP projects for airports, port concessions, and much more. But it's relevant the highways case as it is one of the first priorities when talking about infrastructure.It is also worthy to mention that India's Prime Minister committee on infrastructure (CoI) is in favour of setting up a separate agency to plan and implement expressways across the country. The proposed Expressway Authority of India (EAI) will take implementation of all expressway projects from the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). "The NHAI is already over-burdened with planning and execution of highway projects. Keeping in mind the target of constructing 1,000 km of expressways by 2012 and 15,000 km by 2020, there's a need to create a dedicated agency," a goverment official stated.This is the general situation in India, but actually I did not want to write about this today, there are other three specific projects that attracted my interest today.

1. Uncertainty that affects to Hyderabad metro rail project as Maytas Infra is completely inmerse in political trouble. The financial closure should be the next step but it does not seem that it will take place. On the other hand delays could imply a call for fresh tenders as eletions will occur in March.
2. At a time when India Inc is struggling to raise funds for their expansions plans, construction firm IRB Infrastructure Developers has concluded financial closure of its Surat-Dahisar six-lane road project, raising Rs 1,956 core ($391 M) debt and another Rs 544 crore ($109 M) in equity. Deustche Bank is said to have picked up a 10% stake in the project (I will write more in deep another day of international firms entering the indian market, which is really interesting).
3. India's highways regulator, NHAI, will be able to bid out stretches of publicly funded highways to developers under the operations, maintenance and tolling (OMT) contracts. The concessions would range from five to nine years with the stretches being between 100 and 250km long.

Here we go. This all I wanted to write about today. I hope here is enough and not too much information at the same time.Have a good week!Update:Concession terms changing in India