Factors affecting public-private partnership preference in Indian municipal waste sector

Abstract

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management has been a crucial social sector and is part of millennium development goals. Government of India started to use public-private partnerships for this infrastructure provision but without knowing the rationale of its adoption. To this end, this study purposes to draw lessons on factors affecting PPP preference in Indian MSW sector. Questionnaire survey and interviews with the stakeholders of the PPP project provided the data for analysis. Factor analysis technique on the survey data resulted in four components each for attractive and negative factors. The findings suggest that MSW services primarily and importantly procured because of the PPP mode is more favoured on account of the dire need of MSW services in India and benefits. But, stakeholders perceived that PPP caused unfavourable results such as failed projects, high transaction costs, and overexploitation by the private sector. They attributed this negativity to the inappropriate procurement process. Hence, deliberation of the attractive factors and devising strategies to overcome the negative factors will help the public sector to successfully adopt PPP in MSW sector and to frame policies for the procurement of MSW projects through PPP route. This work is novel for providing sector-specific nuances.