Vol.3, Issue 1, 2024

Infrastructure Quarterly

Professor Chandan Chowdhury, Executive Director, PLIIM

Our Vision & Mission

Punj Lloyd Institute of Infrastructure Management (PLIIM) is established within the Indian School of Business as a specialist Institute to support its Infrastructure agenda. The Punj Lloyd Institute of Infrastructure Management seeks to help create top quality management capacity for the Infrastructure and Real Estate Sectors.

Vision

To create high-quality leadership and management capacity for the infrastructure and real estate sectors and create an understanding of the sustainability dimensions impacting the sectors, by delivering quality education, contextual research, and continuous outreach.

Mission
  • Create top-quality educational and training programmes
  • Facilitate learning through online programmes
  • Undertake research that is contextual to the Indian and developing country context
  • Develop tools and decision support systems to support the infrastructure practice
  • Undertake continuous outreach to support the sector
  • Serve as a "Go to" place for the infrastructure sector in India and abroad.

The Punj Lloyd Institute undertakes various initiatives to guide the infrastructure sector toward efficient and sustainable development through research initiatives, knowledge-sharing events, and training public officials and industry professionals. To meet its vision, the institute works closely with corporates in three verticals, Education, Outreach, and Research.

Education

AMPI: Co2025

The eighth offering of the Advanced Management Programme (AMPI) commenced its first residency from 26 April to 5 May 2024 at the Mohali Campus. We have 27 students in our Co2025 Advanced Management Programme for Infrastructure. The cohort has an average experience of 12 years, representing a mix of middle, senior, and top management

Class of Co2025

  • There was a speaker session during the residency.
  • The students studied core subjects related to infrastructure during the residency and made presentations of their action learning projects.

Research

A Decade of Infrastructure Development in India: Trends and Insights

Data analysis from Capital IQ Pro for 1,115 companies in the infrastructure sector is completed and documented to cover the 20 different categories, extending coverage to the water, renewable energy, coal, and gas utilities. Commentaries for more than 100 different graphs have been added to showcase the trends in the last 14 years. The Table of Contents and Summary of the book have been drafted and re-edited to include the latest components from the Capital IQ Pro analysis of secondary data.

The chapters based on literature reviews are being updated to incorporate the latest data possible as of March 2024, like new government press releases and reports published with the latest data from 2023. New insights have emerged as the sector has undergone a post-pandemic recovery phase, and more data has been published by the government ministries. Edits on the chapter on Railways have been completed to include more recent and relevant data points. The next chapters to be updated are on Real Estate, Ports, and Airports, with a targeted timeline for the end of June.

Action Learning Projects

Rejuvenation of depleting ground water levels using PPP model
Team Members:
  • Prabhakar Dhulipudi
  • Anurag Jyothy Kunnel
  • Deepak Jain
  • Syed Salman Hussain
  • Diixita Gulgulia
  • Reuben Roy
  • Laxman Rao Lingala
  • Sri Harsha Arisetti
Synopsis:

This ALP addresses the issue of the depleting Water Aquifers by recharging them. The solutions include: (1) To rejuvenate dying lakes and restore RWH (Rainwater harvesting) pits in urban areas. (2) To arrange funds in hybrid model like “Waste to Wealth" as there is Lack of capital from Govt. The significance of this ALP is immense. NITI Aayog based on a study warning that India is facing its ‘worst’ water crisis in history and that demand for potable water will outstrip supply by 2030 if remedial steps are not taken. Nearly 600 million people faced high to extreme water stress. Also, made predictions that 21 cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad will run out of groundwater by 2030, affecting 100 million people. If matters are to continue, there will be a 6% loss in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2050. Moreover, critical groundwater resources, which accounted for 40% of India’s water supply, are being depleted at unsustainable rates and up to 70% of India’s water supply is contaminated. Therefore, water resources available to the country should be brought within the category of utilizable resources to the maximum possible extent.

Unified Gateway for Clearances in Indian Railway Projects
Team Members:
  • Krushang Shah
  • Yuvraj Kanade
  • Deepti Belday
  • Vandit Maheshwari
  • Varun Jain
  • Sandeep deb
Synopsis:

For contractors, working with Indian Railways, an entity that operates across borders and functions, it becomes extremely bureaucratic when trying to achieve approvals and clearances for any project. We believe that a re-imagined unified gateway system that connects relevant stakeholders through Digital Public Infrastructure (like E-Office, API Setu, India Stack) will make the entire process much more transparent, efficient and help make projects more efficient by setting up frameworks to identify bottlenecks in the approvals and clearances. The scope includes (1) Approvals and clearances post awarding of tender in Railways, (2) Analyze completed projects in Railways, and (3) Failures of past single-window vs successful systems.

Strategies for enhancing the performance and efficiency in highway projects
Team Members:
  • Venkata Ranga Rao
  • Subhankar Nath
  • Shubhayu Dutta
  • Sidhant Pandey
  • Manasa Vemuri
  • Sai Sreenivas Bitra
  • Varun Walia
Synopsis:

For the majority of the ongoing/ awarded road projects, consistent delays are experienced thereby causing exchequer loss to both owner and the concessionaire. Considerable studies have been dedicated to evaluating reasons with a focus on prebid processes. However, there exists an imminent need for multi-faceted post bid analysis which encompasses inferences from Concept to completion stages and decipher the gaps and resulting concerns. The objectives of the study will be to identify the concerns and suggest measures for enhanced performance for effective implementation for the awarded projects on a wholistic perspective. The scope includes the study and collection of data and analyze the same for pain points (both explicit and implicit) based on which improved / amended strategies shall be developed for the ongoing road projects for satisfactory and timely completion for pan India projects.

Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for development of Sustainable Satellite Cities
Team Members:
  • Rohit Malhotra
  • Angraj Hazarika
  • Apurva Zopay
  • Uddhav Chandra
  • Harsh Keshari
  • Rajavardhan Tondapu
Synopsis:

Rapid urbanization is leading to overcrowded cities resulting in a lack of access to basic resources such as clean water, electricity, public transport to the exploding population. This is a problem in most of the developing countries. Government is planning to develop Satellite Cities around major cities to overcome this problem. As per United Nations-Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022 India’s urban population is projected to be 67,54,56,000 in 2035, growing from 48,30,99,000 in 2020 to 54,27,43,000 in 2025 and 60,73,42,000 in 2030. By 2035, 43.2% of the population in India will be residing in urban areas. The existing infrastructure in the cities will not be in a position to handle such a population explosion. To resolve this problem of overcrowding of our cities, the governments and private sector shall come together to develop financially viable sustainable satellite cities which is given access to more inclusive, greener, healthier and safer urban infrastructure for our future generations.

Outreach

Speaker session by Mr. Davinder Sandhu

Topic: Five Steps for Infrastructure: Indian Context.
Mr. Davinder Sandhu delivered an enlightening lecture on "Five Steps for Infrastructure: Indian Context." The five steps he discussed were:

  • Structural Issues
  • Public Perception of Private Investment
  • The Capex Gap
  • Relevant Examples
  • Leadership Approach to Infrastructure

In the first step, structural issues, he covered aspects such as Detailed Project Reports (DPRs), conflicts of interest, and regulatory challenges, providing several practical examples. In the second step, Mr. Sandhu explained the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) Scheme, which supports infrastructure projects that are economically justified but slightly fall short of financial viability. In the third step, he illustrated strategies to narrow the Capex gap. He also discussed how creativity, sudden changes, gold plating, and imbalances can affect the implementation of infrastructure projects. In the final step, Mr. Sandhu emphasized the importance of leadership in infrastructure. He highlighted the necessity of understanding that an entity's purpose lies outside itself, starting from an external perspective, and recognizing that empathetic infrastructure benefits all stakeholders. The lecture concluded with a lively Q&A session with the students.

Session by Mr. Davinder Sandhu

Panel discussion, "The Journey to a Greener Future"— on May 23, 2024

The panel discussion, "The Journey to a Greener Future," was held on Thursday, May 23, 2024, from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM at the ISB Campus in Mohali. The event was led by Prof. Chandan Chowdhury, Practice Professor and Executive Director Munjal Institute for Global Manufacturing and Punj Lloyd Institute of Infrastructure Management

The panelists included Ms. Kalpana Ramesh, founder of KAAVA Design Studio; Mr. Dhaval Shah, Chief Growth Officer at Incorp Global; Mr. Davinder Sandhu, Co-founder and Chairman of Primus Partners; and Ms. Shefali Roy, Vice President at Thermogreen Cool Coat Pvt. Ltd. Col. Rajiv Bhargava set the stage with a brief speech explaining the significance of the panel discussion's theme. The keynote address was delivered by Mr. Davinder Sandhu. The panelists shared their insights interacting with Prof. Chandan. An interaction and Q&A session followed from 5:50 PM to 6:05 PM, after which Prof. Chandan Chowdhury and Ms. Archana Pillutla led a felicitation ceremony. Mr. Ashish Bhardwaj presented ISB's sustainability initiatives, and the Eco Paryavaran Group discussed the impact of green infrastructure. Prof. Pratap Sundar provided a brief explanation of biomimicry principles for sustainable infrastructure. The event concluded with remarks and a vote of thanks from Mr. Jitu Mishra, Chief Administrative Officer of ISB.

Punj Lloyd Institute of Infrastructure Management

Indian School of Business, Knowledge City,
Sector 81, Mohali 140306.