The Central Information Commission has ruled the details of agreements signed by governments with private organizations to execute projects can no longer be kept secret. If a right to information application is moved seeking the relevant information, it will have to be provided.
The decision is likely to have far reaching and potentially damaging implications as private companies may well shy away from such close scrutiny of their financial arrangements. So far the text of PPP agreements could be kept confidential, citing business interests.
The PPP model has been increasingly used in recent years to finance and build infrastructure from highways to ports, from Metro lines to industrial facilities. Industry estimates say 20% of India's infrastructure projects fall in this category.
The CIC has ordered the state-owned Mumbai Port Trust to release in its entirety the agreement it signed with a consortium led by Gammon India Ltd, to construct an off-shore container terminal along Mumbai’s coast.
A three-member bench of the CIC ruled on an RTI application filed by an activist organization the Bombay Environmental Action Group it said that “A PPP agreement involving the nation's physical resources and its infrastructure, which had critical environmental social and human aspects, apart from technical and financial aspects, could not be a matter between the bureaucracy of the government and the private party alone.”
The BEAG’s application was twice rejected at lower levels before the CIC upheld it. Ms Hema Ramani of BEAG said that “This project is about public land and public money. If the government can know the implications of the project, why cannot the public?.”
The Planning Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General have also endorsed the ruling.
So far industry has reacted cautiously. Mr Vinayak Chatterjee who heads the Council on Infrastructure Confederation of Indian Industry said that “I welcome the order. PPP agreements should be open to public scrutiny.”
(Sourced from www.steelguru.com)
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