The Indian Railways Institute of Transport Management ,Lucknow organized a three day cross sectoral workshop on PPP in the Infrastructure sector, which was inaugurated by the Chairman, Railway Board, Sri K.C. Jena on September 9, 2008 in the Conference Hall at the sprawling and lush green campus of IRITM at Lucknow.

IRITM has been entrusted with the responsibility of creating a Knowledge Resource Centre for PPP in the Infrastructure Sector for building training modules as well as for disseminating information and knowledge sharing for this rapidly expanding area of project development and execution. It may also be worth mentioning that Indian Railways has a big shelf of projects which need to be done through the PPP mode. The Hon’ble Railway Minister in his budget speech of February, 2008 had indicated that investments to the tune of Rs. 100 thousand crores would be required in the 11th plan period for PPP projects. The areas identified are building world Class Railway Stations at Metro Stations. Multi Modal Logistics Parks, State-of-Art Rolling Stock Productions Units etc.

Against this scenario, IRITM/LKO conceived of holding a three day cross sectoral Capacity Building Workshop on PPP in the infrastructure sector. The four core transport Sector were chosen for discussions -Railways, Roadways, Airports & Ports.

The workshop saw the presence of leading experts & think tanks of the country for PPP experience sharing. On the opening day of the workshop. Joint Secretary Infrastructure-Planning Commission, Policy experts from Centre of Policy research, Sr. Executives from infrastructure financing companies-IDFC, ICICI Venture, Feed back ventures, Power finance experts & Executive Director PPP, Railway Board were some of the resource persons who presented their views on the subjects.

The GMR Group which has built the green field Airport in Hyderabad , presented the concessionaire’s perspectives on PPP agreements. The workshop was attended by SAG-SG officers from Traffic , Finance & Engineering Departments of Indian Railways. The Valedictory Session was chaired by Member Traffic, Railway Board Sri V.N.Mathur.

The workshop received a very positive feedback not only from the participants but also from the resource persons who had come from far off cities such as Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bhopal, apart from New Delhi to attend the workshop at Lucknow.

The PPP cell at IRITM Lucknow proposes to carry forward the experience gained through this workshop by promoting further training & academic research on PPP with special focus on Transport Sector. The workshop was coordinated by Dr. Kalpana Dube, Sr. Prof. PPP & Finance/IRITM under the overall guidance of the Director/IRITM Dr. P.K. Goel.