Mr. Deepak Parekh,
Chairman and Managing Director, IDFC, Prof. J.Saha, Director IIM,
Ahmedabad, Prof. K.A. Padmanabhan, Director IIT, Kanpur signed an MoU in
New Delhi today creating the 3i Network for infrastucture development.
The world over,
infrastucture development is increasingly attractive private
investments, as governments move away from being the primary investor
and manager of infrastructure assets. Public private partnerships are
being forged to manage the transition from public ownership, management
and control to private operations with an eventful transfer of
owenership to the private sector.
Here in India, we are
experiencing similar trends as governments have less and less resources
to invest in complex and extensive infrastructure requirements of a
rapidly growing economy in a globalisin world.
Private participation
will require a major re-evaluation of the legal, fiscal, regulatory,
technological and conceptual issues that arise when stimulating a
migration from public sector to private sector development. The
framework conditions will need to change fundamentally from those
existing today and the underpinnings of a new paradigm will need to
emerge very rapidly. All of this will require a considerable degree of
detaled study and applied research.
While IDFC, through its
Policy Advisory Boards, is leading this process in Power and Ports and
shortly in integrated transportation logistics and Telecom and IT, it is
necessary to harness a larger participation from the academic community
that are also working on some of these issues.
IDFC has taken the lead
to create a '3I Network' consisting of two of our leading academic
institutions - the Indian Institute of Technology - Kanpur and the
Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad to help in this task.
Purpose
The 3I (Three I) network
is being established to provide a systematic and organised framework in
which much of the new agenda can be enunciated and researched with a
view to contribute immediately to the unfolding infrastructure
investment climate. The emphasis will be on gathering the best
managerial and technical expertise available in the academic community
to focus attention on the crucial issues that need to be addressed.
Through them, it is hoped that both the academic and the young research
student community will also be influenced to work on topics of great
relevance to the needs of the economy.
