Curriculum Building India: Infrastructure Economics
Building India: Infrastructure Economics
How roads, airports, water pipes and broadband get planned, paid for and built - public-private partnerships, hybrid annuities, tolls and FASTag, land acquisition, cost overruns, InvITs, airport privatisation, Jal Jeevan Mission and BharatNet.
- Why Infrastructure Is Different The economic features that make roads, power lines, pipes and ports unlike ordinary goods - huge upfront costs, long lives, network effects and spillovers - and why governments are so involved. 📄 Read-aloud
- Public-Private Partnerships How governments team up with private companies to build and run infrastructure, the main PPP models, and why many Indian PPPs ran into trouble. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Hybrid Annuity Model How India's hybrid annuity model for highways splits funding and risks between the government and private developers, and why it revived road building. 📄 Read-aloud
- Tolls, FASTag and Paying for Roads Why India charges tolls on highways, how the electronic FASTag system cut waiting times, and the debates about toll fairness and new annual passes. 📄 Read-aloud
- Land Acquisition: The 2013 Act and Its Trade-offs How India's 2013 land acquisition law raised compensation and required consent and social impact assessments, and the debate over whether it slowed infrastructure. 📄 Read-aloud
- Why Big Projects Run Late and Over Budget Why infrastructure megaprojects around the world so often exceed their budgets and timelines, the causes in India, and how planning can improve. 📄 Read-aloud
- Building India: Checkpoint 1 Quick checkpoint - five questions on infrastructure's features, PPPs, the hybrid annuity model, FASTag and land acquisition. 5 questions
- InvITs and Asset Monetisation How India raises money by leasing or selling stakes in completed roads, pipelines and power lines through investment trusts and its National Monetisation Pipeline. 📄 Read-aloud
- Privatising India's Airports How India handed major airports to private operators through PPPs, what it changed for passengers and investment, and the concerns about concentration and charges. 📄 Read-aloud
- Tap Water for Every Home: Jal Jeevan Mission How India's Jal Jeevan Mission set out to connect every rural household to piped water, the progress made, and the challenges of supply, quality and upkeep. 📄 Read-aloud
- BharatNet: Bringing Broadband to Villages How India's plan to connect every village council with optical fibre has progressed, why the last mile is hard, and what rural broadband can do for the economy. 📄 Read-aloud
- Do Roads Pay Off? Measuring Infrastructure's Impact How economists measure whether infrastructure spending pays off, with evidence from India's Golden Quadrilateral and rural roads programme. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Forgotten Half: Maintaining Infrastructure Why governments often neglect maintenance in favour of new projects, the high costs of deferred upkeep, and how better funding and incentives can help. 📄 Read-aloud