Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) as a policy tool, in India, is increasingly finding acceptance as an alternate mode of service delivery in sectors such as Urban Water supply and Municipal Solid Waste. While the experience gained from implementing PPPs has provided governments (both centre and state) with sufficient confidence to move the concept to the social sectors as well, evidence of success of PPP projects continue to remain mixed at best.

This highlights a common yet often ignored point that PPPs are not a panacea for all ills facing a variety of sectors, but instead, simply a tool, albeit a powerful one, to unlock critical bottlenecks that have caused a chronic deficit in the quality of service delivery in these sectors.

Given the above context, Athena Infonomics in collaboration with the Ministry of Urban Development, British High Commission and the Confederation of Indian Industry held a conference on ' Implementing Public Private Partnerships in Urban Water Supply and Municipal Solid Waste: Challenges and Opportunities' by bringing on board a distinguished set of senior government officials, industry heads, ULB representatives, Consultants and Academics at the Silver Oak Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on the 20th of September, 2012. The key speakers at the Inaugural included distinguished members from Government and Industry including Mr. Gajendra Haldea, Advisor to Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr. Andrew Jackson, Knowledge Counsellor, British High Commission, Mr. Robert Donkers, Minister Counsellor, Delegation of European Union to India, Mr. Indresh Batra, Managing Director, Jindal Saw, Mr. Amitabh Shrivastava, Director, CII and Dr. S. Narayan, former Finance Secretary, Government of India and President, Athena Infonomics.