The Hindu Business Line : Private-public partnership

ALTHOUGH comparatively of recent origin, the idea of organisations in the private and public sectors collaborating to make a success of important projects has taken strong root and is paying both business and social dividends in many countries.

Physical and social infrastructure, water supply, watershed management, wastelands development, afforestation — in fact, nothing that touches the lives of the people is out of bounds for the invocation of the concept.

Since the advent of the era of liberalisation, India's policymakers have been putting a high premium on private-public partnership (PPP). So much so, there is no Budget which does not earmark assorted schemes and projects for PPP.

The 2004-05 Budget has, in fact, visualised a mammoth infrastructure fund of Rs 40,000 crore to be pooled from resources of government, banks, financial institutions and the private sector.

Telecom, roads, ports (both sea and air), energy and desalination have already qualified to be prime candidates for further extending and intensifying PPP.

Some years ago, the Government of Tamil Nadu ingeniously inducted PPP into an area which was till then out of its purview.

It brought together a group of reputed private sector firms which enthusiastically undertook to tone up the performance of government hospitals and health centres by instilling in them better work culture and high quality care for patients in a friendly and compassionate spirit.

They also were willing to help in the servicing, upgrading and maintaining of the health infrastructure. It held great promise as an innovative experiment, but as often happens in a "soft state" like India, announcement was not followed up by ensuring accomplishment.

Now, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has cottoned on to the idea. The latest is the formation of a partnership of NHS with the well-known retailer, Boots, and the software giant, Oracle.

The NHS has long been notorious (no other word will do) for its ugly reputation among patients for poor service and unconscionably long delays in giving appointments and scheduling operations.

The induction of the two private sector firms (and the involvement of more in due course is on the cards) is meant to improve "customer experience" in hospitals, health centres and social care, resulting in more purposeful and efficient utilisation of resources, modernisation of medical technology and upgradation of the professionals.

Here is something for India's Health Ministry to think about.

B. S. Raghavan