Sri Lanka we have not been very successful with toll roads, but India has made a start.
Xue Lan: I think what China has done in the past in many regions. The public private partnership is at work taking advantage of market reform. Once you have some success in one region that will be quickly spread to others.
Mehta: I think this is exactly the area you need evidence based research. It has to embed toll roads in the larger economy. How do allocation decisions get made? Even in China there is actually a debate as to the opportunity costs. The second question it has to tackle is the question of the political economy. There is some evidence that public private partnerships are a wonderful mechanism for those in power to mobilize rents in ways that are legally compelling and arguably socially beneficially. A lot of the infrastructure stuff, we’ll have to come with a compelling account of the political economy. That has to be a part of the discussion.
Milinda: Having worked on these issues from 2001 to now. The biggest challenge we had was clearly the conflict and war. We thought we could walk and chew gum, but I don’t think it was possible. The conflict was always looming there. Now is the time to look afresh and discuss these issues. Why have we not been able to get a single project together since independence. Forget toll roads, just think about building roads. I think this is the time to start refocusing and to spend political capital to get over these impediments. I don’t want to lay everything at the feet of the conflict, but we couldn’t focus.
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