 Welcome to the session on infrastructure, and what we're going to do over the next hour is to really cover a range of topics on infrastructure. The one thing I must do in terms of setting this up is to say that, you know, there is hard infrastructure and there is soft infrastructure. And what we're going to really cover today is the hard part of it, which is really the hard part of it, which is airports, ports, roads, and urban infrastructure. So what we're going to do today is we have a terrific panel. Let me start from there. Let me start by thanking Minister Puri, who's in charge of urban development and housing, to be here as part of the panel discussion today. We also have Chandrajit Banerjee, who's the Director-General of CII, CB as he's called. Bunty Bora from Goldman Sachs Services, the CEO, K.A.K. Honda, the CEO of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, MIGA, I think I got that right. And then Suman Sinha, the CEO of the New Power. So we have a terrific panel today. And they're here to give us their perspectives on both the opportunities and challenges, but most importantly, what transmission changes are required to really build infrastructure, building back on track. So with that, we will leave some time at the end for the audience to ask some questions. I'm going to put the first question to CB. You know, in terms of the performance of the individual subsectors over the last few years, well, many years, in fact, when you look at roads, rail, transmission, there are certain subsectors that have continued to grow. But investment in other subsectors, like, for example, thermal power, has declined, primarily because of the fact that demand has slowed on as well. But the thing is that for the most part, it always feels like demand is outstripping supply by a wide margin. And while one can talk about all the things and there's a lot that's been accomplished, and we should recognize that. But how can one gain the confidence that there really is forward planning on the what and where of infrastructure building? So to begin with, I'll first of all acknowledge the issue that you said in terms of agreeing with you. And yes, historically, what's been happening, if you see, many of our is basically the overruns of time that all our projects in all the subsectors that you talked about. And the reason has been many. One of the things have been the way we worked on PPPs, which has been sort of something that we depended on and something which has not been all the successful much that we desired that it should have been. And the way it has worked, say, for instance, in terms of clearances, as the land has been a major hindrance in terms of clearances of many projects, which has led to delays. And these delays have been the primary sort of reason for, as you said, demand supply gap. And these have happened, and India being a federal instructor, you've seen state governments having a different bunch of rules and clearances, clearance processes. So historically, this has been a very, very important challenge. The other part of it has been this entire issue of grievances, so to say, and the grievance redressals and dispute resolution. And that also has led to a lot of our projects running behind schedule. So there has been several reasons why projects have run over schedule, which has led to this demand supply gap. And again, the reasons for that, besides that also has been a lot has been to do with in terms of the entire structuring of, say, the PPPs over a period of time. It's just over the last couple of years, one has been seeing streamlining of it. This entire thing of when you are talking about a project being handed over, that you are really talking about that all clear projects getting handed over. So once, and therefore, there is today a scope that is coming in of planning, or for that matter, forward planning, which was not there. So if you were running at a seven year behind schedule, be it a highway, be it your ports, be it your airports, you have seen it that at the time of commission is already being outdated by quite a few years. So these are several issues which the present government has to deal with, has been dealing with it to see that there are streamlining. It says one of the most important challenges has been the land part of it. And I think there has been enough in terms of quite a bit which has been done in terms of streamlining those clearances processes. The other factor which is very important is the factor of trust between when you are really working in PPP mode. And I think that has also historically, if you've seen a lot of lack of trust, which again led to the other issue that I spoke about disputes and grievances. So I think all of this today has had led to India not being able to keep pace with the type of infrastructure that it required. And we need the regulatory framework to really kick in. One of the case in points here, for instance, is RERA. And we do hope that to be very successful. And such projects, such regulatory frameworks becoming successful would lead to again some of this demand supply gap being actually met within the time frame that we desire. So Sivya, I want to come back and ask you maybe, and the group, a couple of points around both the regulatory framework as well as PPPs. You referenced that a few times. But I want to ask you very specifically, do you feel like there is more forward planning in terms of the infrastructure that is required than what's happened in the past? So do you feel like there's more forward planning now? Yeah, exactly the point that I was trying to say. I think we have to make up for a huge deficit that we have today inherited, so to say. But I think we have been able to today get into streamlining a lot of this when you are handing over a project. But again, as I was mentioning, there is a lot of risk elements which any project that you get into will remain. And there has to be certain provisions of when we revisit this over a period of time in terms of the type of risk that keep coming up. So I think the framework is now pretty much in place when we are doing our forward planning. And as I said that in the last couple of years, we have seen a framework being put into place, especially when we are entering into a contract. And I think that is going to be a critical enabler in terms of seeing some of the, that we are able to deliver a deficit that India runs today and also much clearer and cleaner contract between the state and the private party. Okay, I actually just realized that I forgot to introduce myself. So my name is Sri Rajan. I'm with Bain and Company and the Chairman of Bain in India, Mr. Puri. So just a little bit of context setting. You're responsible for a ministry that may not have been very relevant 20 years ago because everyone and people still continue to say that India lives in its villages. But the percentage of people living in urban areas has grown from about 33% of the population. It's now 33% expected to reach 45% in the next 10 years. And this is not just a set of current cities that are growing larger, not just cities like Delhi, but also the urbanization of small towns. And one of the major initiatives of the current government has really been in the area of smart cities. But for someone who lives in one of these cities and towns in our country, it doesn't feel like things are getting better. Cities are clogged, commuters increasingly miserable, urban infrastructure feels like it's collapsing. And I know that the center doesn't have control over many other things that happen in cities. A lot of the stuff gets controlled by the state and the municipalities. But what's your perspective on this? What do you feel like needs to be done? And maybe at a more specific level, as a citizen who lives in one of these cities, when can we expect garbage to be collected? Well, thank you for asking me the easier question. Well, you know, I'm one month old in the job. And like most Indian citizens, I have had a healthy streak of cynicism about how our urban areas are, you know, evolving. So let me try and provide a perspective to start with. When we became an independent country, something like 17% of India lived in urban areas. Most of India lived in rural areas, but over several decades, the contribution of agriculture to the overall GDP has been declining. Now it's well below 20% if I'm not mistaken. And therefore a situation in which 60% or more of Indians live in rural areas, while the income from agriculture is declining and you've got, you know, incomes from services and other things growing up, that's not a terrible situation. People will move. In any case, I believe that there are two processes which you should take as a given. One is globalization and the other is urbanization. So whether you like the processes or not, they will take place. Now, many people have told me that in India, the urbanization has been somewhat slow, but you know, they are comparing urbanization in India to the rates of urbanization in highly developed countries. I don't think that's a fair comparison. The last census we have is 2011. According to that, something like 30% of Indians lived in urban areas. I think in six years later, the figure is already way beyond that. And I am going by the other indicators with which my ministry has to deal with. My take is that after the 2030 agenda, the SDGs agenda is completed or near completed and we move a decade or so more, you will roughly have about 50% of India living in urban areas. And that's the point where you should start acknowledging that what you did in the last few decades of, you know, rural development focus, et cetera, that will always continue to be important. But I think you should start coming to terms of the fact that India is and will be an urban country. Now, when India is so categorized, you have to take on board the following factors. One, you're on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution. Okay. It's all about urban services. All right. How do you deal with this situation? Now, I find myself to have walked into a situation where I've been appointed when we have extremely well-defined programs. Three of the Prime Minister's flagship programs deal precisely with the kind of questions you are presently discussing. And I mean three of them. One is Swach Bharat. That was your concluding question, one amongst many, where you said, how do you deal with garbage? How do you deal with waste disposal and come to that separately? These three projects, Swach Bharat, has specific targets, which means the number of toilets you have to build in urban areas and rural areas. My portfolio deals with urban areas so I can reel off the figures, I live them day and night, we monitor them all the time. Individual toilets, 68 lakhs, 67 lakhs have to be built, 38 lakhs have been built, 14 lakhs are under construction. But you know, you can ask me, you can build a toilet, will somebody use it? I don't know. You have to encourage people to use it. And I think the Prime Minister said something very, very, for me, something that resonated very strongly. He said, you can get a thousand Modi's. You know, you can get many Mahatma Gandhi's. You know, it is Gandhiji in 1916 who said, sanitation is more important than political freedom. Now, you require a behavioral, a lifestyle and a mindset change. And I think that is what is being attempted just now. Garbage, you discussed garbage. You have to start with segregating waste at the point of production. I don't mean this only for individual households. You know, the wet, biodegradable stuff, the dry, the toxic stuff has to be separated. We have to increase our capacity for biomethanation, you know, waste to compost and to energy. All those are processes underway. We have to, you know, it's a shame, 70 years after we become an independent country, we still have manual scavenging. Now, you can pass all the laws in the world. You can ban it. You can prescribe punishments. But you know, there is a situation out there. And what is that situation? People who run large commercial establishments take their garbage of the day and at night, push it into the sewers and block it. Now, yes, steps are underway. I've been assured by people who are responsible that they are now going in for large scale, mechanical cleaning of the drains, you know, where the gullies and the bilanes are small, small, mobile, you know, things on a tripod. All that is being done. But look at the challenge here. Housing for all requires a house to be built for every Indian citizen by 2022. Something between 30 square meters and 70 square meters, a house that has a kitchen, it has a toilet, it has the basic facilities. In Bombay recently, Mumbai, I should say, I unveiled an eight point package for PPP. Six of the options in this eight point package are using government land. So where the government will provide the land, where the government will also provide per a lotty, 1.5 lakhs to 2.5 lakhs of rupees. So we're doing all that. Smart cities. Now that was your main question. I'm sorry I had to come to that. Look, our cities are stressed, they're under stress. We have in the heart of the cities, not only in Delhi, but most other cities of India, you have large concentrations of people living there. I don't like to use the term slums, but that's how it's described. Now, it's no longer feasible for us to lift people out and take them 100, 200 kilometers away. So you have to have urban rejuvenation, resettlement by building affordable housing. That's what housing for all is going. Then and where the people are very close to their project so that they can move straight into them. So these are all enormous challenges. I think we are getting ahead. The cynicism I had about smart cities, I'm losing because I'm spending long hours being briefed by my colleagues, the officials. And I just want to share one fact with you. Hundreds of thousands of crores of contracting has been done. I have the figures here, but I think that's not important. You will begin to see the results of that by June, 2018, because that is when the physical manifestations of what has been contracted is visible to the naked eye. Similarly, housing for all. And I think once your smart city starts taking a shape, you know, when you have, I mean, I had somebody, the Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister wanting to do the riverfront upgradation of the kind that's happened in Gujarat. And I said, yes, you can do it under smart cities. You can resettle people. You can build modern affordable houses, all that you can do. We will get there, but it's going to be not easy. You need cooperation and that's my appeal to you and to you gentlemen through CII, through all your others. I've been telling foreign participants, you know, they have been hand-holding, adopting a few cities. We don't select the cities. There's an open challenge competition. The cities have to select themselves. They have to qualify. We've selected 90 of them. We have another tent to go. I would like to see private sector step in in a big way. For the smart cities, we've already done provisioning for PPP or something like 33,000 crores. So here I think is a massive economic opportunity and an economic opportunity, which I would like. Look, I have no doubt that if we can get housing for all going quickly and it is, it is starting. The Andhra Urban Development Minister told me, look, we've been slow because we were evaluating technologies and but we have done that. I will give you 5.6 lakh units in 15 months from now. No, I'm sorry. I've been a little long-winded, but that's the indulgence you showed to a newly appointed minister. Thank you. We're very happy to indulge you minister. But if I can just ask one quick follow-up question. You know, you talked a lot about smart cities and thank you for spending the time on garbage collection. I think it's obviously very important for all of us. But the one thing is that when you look at urban infrastructure today and even if you take basic, the basic manifestation of roads and commuting time, the infrastructure within the cities is really not keeping pace with the demands. What is the, and you know, again, it's not, it may not be within your control because at the end of the day, these are cities that are controlled by state governments and so on. What can be done to really change the way state governments and municipalities think about cities and city planning? Well, brilliant question. I can give you a very short answer. Yeah. In the one month that I've been here on this job, I've already participated in the inauguration of two metro lines. Lucknow, the first reach of eight kilometers, two days, I think sixth or seventh of September, and day before yesterday, Kochi, the second reach of five kilometers. Prime Minister had inaugurated the first 13 kilometers in June. Look, you don't have an option. You have to decongest the cities. I mean, there's not an option. This is not no longer an option. You have to do it, but you have to use your margin of persuasion with the state governments. Now, in the case of Delhi, I have been trying to work my very limited margin with the Chief Minister. He wants the fares of Delhi Metro haven't gone up for eight years. All right. We decided to raise them in two installments. It's not that one installment with second time around now. He thinks, no, they should be deferred. Now, how does a world class asset like the Delhi Metro survive if it is not allowed to charge fees or or or or affairs? There are two ways to my way of thinking. First of all, I don't think I have got the power. I think there is a high, high powered committee headed by a judge of the High Court and and two other very senior people who have the powers to make recommendations on fair fixation. But you have no choice. You have to build the urban infrastructure, which includes metros. It includes other innovative things that you can do in order to ensure that the cities function. But, you know, I don't want to be too harsh on myself and Delhi and India. I've lived most of my four and a half decades of professional life outside and believe me, when it rains, even New York clouds down. I mean, I've lived there for many years, other cities. But in India, it's going to get worse because the pressure of population and the urbanization rate is getting much faster. That's right. Thank you. Keiko, just to come to you, you know, your vantage point really affords you, you know, to have a perspective, not just on India, but also other countries. So as you look in from the outside, so to speak, on what's happening with infrastructure development in India, what is your perspective in terms of what you see as a pace of development or the pace of change? And also if you can give us a perspective in terms of maybe best practices that you've seen from around the world that we might think of adopting, implementing over here. Well, thank you very much, Siddhi. India, I'm actually healing today. People really worried about short term economic growth rate coming a little bit of down. Having said that midterm to long term, this country has a lot of potential great demographics. Most of other ministers of other country admire to be here in your seat. Having said that, there are several and also urbanization. This is not only India's problem. Almost all middle income countries are facing the same problem. Having said that, I think India, a lot of things to do. My understanding, India has 300 million people living with that power and over 70 million people living without access to cream water. This is a problem. So therefore, infrastructure has to be strengthened. But this is also provide a big opportunity for business, big opportunities for empowerment. And you just mentioned what is the other country kind of facing those problem? I can just state one sentence. First of all, some people are actually saying lack of infrastructure is financing problem. So some are saying, why don't World Bank Group bring different types of investors such as pension fund and insurance company? I don't think so. I think what is missing is the investable project. A lot of private investors, experienced private investors such as large commercial banks, they have a liquidity. So what we're really missing is investable project. How to make the project investable government? Development institutions like us, as well as private sector can play a lot of role. Government, as Mr. Minister, you just mentioned, how to set the proper tariff, you know, how much we have to ask to the ultimate beneficiary is very, very important. And if it's whatever the reason, not possible to ask the proper level, government obviously have to provide the same level of financial support. If that is the case, private investor can come in. I think that's one thing. And MDB like us have to also pray like a letter to be large role since some of the private investors feel some sort of risk to getting into infrastructure development. But I'm always saying, recommending private investors to slice their risk, find a way to mitigate specific risk. Miga, as a part of the World Bank Group, we provide political risk insurance and credit enhancement. But I think in India, we actually willing to support, enhance credit of credit or see not only the sovereign, but also some of the subsovereign. So therefore, subsovereign can be a project owner. And with our enhancement, they can finance very, very cheaply. So therefore, some of the infrastructure can be financed. Quickly. Our products being actively used by Turkey. We separated Turkey over $2 billion last two and a half years. We separated Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam and a way more country. And why not in India? That's where we are right now. That's terrific. So what you're saying is that's not lack of money. It doesn't seem like that's the issue. It's really the fact that you're not seeing enough investable projects. And maybe there's an issue in terms of how or what are the things you want to see to make a project investable that we should just have a follow-up discussion on. So someone turning to you. You know, you've built the largest renewable power company in the country from scratch. And you know, we're in a position today where we have power generation surplus, which is a position that we couldn't have imagined a few years ago. But, you know, we still have power cuts or to use the term in India, the quaint term of load shedding, as we call it, for significant periods of time, for significant parts of the country. The issue really, as you well know, is the issue with the state electricity boards. And the government has tried to fix the problem or they've tried to fix this problem. But is it really working? And do you feel like something more should be done to make sure that in a situation where we have excess power generation, that we still don't have consumers who are getting the power that they need? Yeah, thank you, Sri. No, it's a paradox, isn't it? That we have a power surplus situation on the face of it. But in reality, you know, there are large sections of the country, large parts of the country that don't actually have any access to power. And I think the reason for that is basically that there is a lot of suppressed demand in the country. So for example, we have a huge installed base of diesel gen sets, which actually don't really have any reason to be there other than to provide backup power. And this amount is probably in the tens of thousands of megawatts. So that is sucking away some power demand from the system. The second thing is we have large parts of our population that are still not electrified. Don't have access to electricity. And so if you add all of that up, the chances are that we actually are not power surplus as a country. And so therefore the conundrum is, why do we have a situation where it feels like we have a situation where there is excess power? And you hit the nail on the head. The problem really is the distribution companies in India. And if I take a step back and look at the power sector at a slightly more holistic level, you'll realize that somewhere, somehow, the 25 years or the quarter century of reforms you've had has sort of just passed the power sector aside. So if you look at the generation side, for example, large parts of it are still held through government-owned companies, whether it's an NTPC or an NHPC or state-owned generation companies. Look at the transmission side. It's run by a power grid corporation, another government-owned entity. And you look at the distribution side, it's all owned by state governments. We have a nominally independent regulatory system, but I say nominally for a variety of reasons. And the big reform that has not happened is that people in India still believe that it is the politicians who control the pricing of power. And the politicians know that. And as long as they know that, they know that they will be penalized if the price of power goes up. And so therefore they will never let go of that control. And so somewhere, somehow, the big reform that we need to have is that we need to break this linkage in people's minds about who controls the pricing of power. And if that can happen, only then will you have a situation where you can start looking at distribution side reforms. And that is the fundamental linkage in the whole system that breaks down even this government-controlled entity or monolith as it were. And so that's really what we need to try to achieve. And there are various suggestions that are there for that. Number one, we have in the oil sector, for example, we had an automatic reset of oil prices. Can we have an automatic reset of power prices, for example, so that people know that it's not the politicians who control power prices, but it's some independent mechanism. So that might break the linkage over a period of time. The second thing is, the second idea is, which the government has actually talked about, has not yet implemented, however, but hopefully is moving in that direction, is to potentially break down or separate at the distribution level, carriage from content, i.e., you have one company owning the wire and another company providing the power. If you can do that kind of a breakup, then the power, the line-owning company can still be a government entity, which is regulated, and the power supplier could be a free market sort of a system. The third idea to address this problem is to have an outright privatization of the distribution sector, which certain cities in India have tried to make success, but it has certainly brought down AT&C losses. And so one of these two or three different mechanisms has to be tried out to address the problems on the distribution side. And only if that gets redressed, today distribution companies in India, between the price at which they sell power and the price at which they realize pricing from their customers, there's a 10% gap between the two. And so every unit that the distribution companies sell, they make a loss on that. And so therefore, they resort to load shedding because they don't want to sell power beyond the point. And therefore, the fact that we have a power surplus to come back to the first point that you made is a strange situation because actually it's the distribution companies that are actually suppressing the demand. And so there are many things that need to be done in the power sector. And to me, the power sector really is the fulcrum around which, in some ways, maybe I'm overstating it because I am from the power sector, but certainly it's an input cost into a lot of different sectors and also improves the quality of life of a number of people across different parts of India. Now, that is something that needs to be addressed on a war footing and we need to try to get this sector aligned in a way that we are able to provide cheaper power on a more consistent basis. That'll lead to more manufacturing, cheaper cost of manufacturing and a higher quality of life for people. Great. I'll come back and we'll explore the aspect of regulatory, strengthening the regulatory framework. Bhante, coming to you, the question I have for you is as we think about infrastructure funding, especially in the context of PPP projects, there have been many projects as CB pointed out in the beginning that have struggled with project completion. When you're a funder, you can't have that degree of uncertainty in terms of project completion when you're funding a project. Now, according to CB, things are improving. We have better visibility in terms of what's happening with projects. That's one aspect of it, but the other aspect is we also don't have robust bond markets in India that give you access to long-term credit. So as you combine the two together, clearly maybe everyone lines up in front of Keiko and asks for money, that may be one solution. But what's the answer? There is so much to be done in this country. Where is that money going to come from? It can't come from the government alone. So this is a very, very simple solution. Complete the projects on time and create a viable bond market. It's just as simple as that. And I know I'm sounding a little bit pithy about it, but I live in Bangalore, so I care about infrastructure. I work for an investment bank, so I care about capital market formation. Every day, I experience the shortfall of both, but I'll put this in kind of a broader context for everybody. Because I'm an India bull. I mean, I'm blindly bullish on the prospects of India more so than I ever have been in as long as I've ever cared. So we've got demographic potential. We talk about that all the time. The productivity catch-up opportunity, even if it's messy just through urbanization and moving away from certain sectors is probably the greatest that the country's ever seen and probably the greatest in the world in terms of a pure growth impulse. You have a lot of progress on policy and reform. There's financialization of savings and capital formation in an economy that for a long time has really, really been underserved in that regard. And then on top of it, you've got these digitization trends which I think are uniquely impactful on India. So when you take away all the good things and you say, okay, what's left to really work on? You've just identified to be the two most important things. They just happen to be what this panel is about. Infrastructure, everybody who's been to India sees a shortfall in infrastructure. Whether it's the hard infrastructure of roads and power and water or the softer infrastructure of education, food supply chains and so on. But credit access is actually a big shortfall as well. Household credit is very low but so too is corporate access to viable launch of credit or in this case, public infrastructure access. So to me, this is the need of the hour and I don't want to understate this. Now, at the same time, the simply, you take a finance theory class in business school or in college and the first page of chapter one after the forward is on one topic and everybody knows what it is, time value of money. Very, very simple, right? That money has a value that compounds over time. So this execution issue or timing or uncertainty, these aren't like exotic issues. These aren't local issues. These aren't policy issues. This is just a pure financial issue. Page one, chapter one, finance theory one-on-one. Which means that this issue has to be addressed. Now, you get these issues addressed by making factors available so that could be fuel or land availability or clearances and all of those things have like a policy reach element to it. But then you also have this, what you've alluded to is this mismatch of funding or this appropriateness of the type of capital that is funding these projects. So let's assume that all capital of all sources around the world from any institution has a certain expectation of return. Once those returns are clarified and once the risks that are associated with them are clarified and once the term is clarified as in like literally the duration of those terms, there's no shortage of capital around the world. There's probably over time, not even that much of a shortage of capital within the borders. But the facilitation of allowing that in, and I think Ms. Honda was alluding to that, is going to be on the basis of people knowing what they're getting into. And I think that there has been enough sort of uncertainty created because of projects that have been hung or otherwise extended that has actually caused return expectations to not be met, which then creates a complete reframing of the risk reward dynamics. So look, the financial technology exists. So if you look at the Indian capital markets in terms of foreign ownership, roughly 400 billion of public equity is owned indirectly or directly by foreign owners. 80 billion of fixed income insurance. Anywhere in the world, that ratio would be the other way around. Any major growing economy, anywhere. If Indian bonds were in an index, because I mean most of the institutionally managed money is either benchmarked to or directly invested per some sort of a bond index. That number could change overnight. You have existing projects that are producing theoretically cash flows or could produce concessions. We've seen airports, we've seen toll roads, ports, metro systems around the world be securitized or concessions have been sold or refinanced. The technology exists to do that, the financial technology and the track record does. So maybe that's a way to bring the appropriate type of long-term capital into an existing project, freeing up maybe bridge, effectively bridge capital that was bank financing or some domestic infrastructure company that really doesn't have the liability mix that should be matched against such a long-term asset and you can recycle and re-energize. You can create, I think, a lot of opportunity by loosening the restrictions on domestic institutions in terms of what they can invest in and what their guidelines are. What I guess why I'm so energized about this is that I find there's this distracting, a bit of a distraction around the early stage venture funding of tech companies. Like that somehow the headline-grabbing nature of this makes it feel to people like this is the need of the hour is to put more into the tech space or to get more venture capital and more private equity into the country when basic financial plumbing and a basic sort of pathway or arterial system to allow credit to get to the individual, to get to corporates, to get to public interest projects is just missing. And so I guess I would just say that we talk about leapfrogging a lot. I mean, there's a lot of, when we'll skip this, we'll skip that, we'll digitize, but some of these basic critical path items, I feel that we're very tentative about taking the first step and it's not really obvious to me why. Okay, I want to come back if we have the time to talk about the corporate bond market, especially for long-term capital. I think it's an issue that's been talked about for at least 25 years. And that's only because I can only remember up to 25 years ago on the discussion. It's probably been talked about for much longer than that. I want to ask one follow-up question because there's one theme between the three of you and then I want to open it up to some questions. And the theme was really around, Sumathi talked about the fact that there's an expectation that politicians control the price of power. You talked about the example actually of the Delhi Metro where there's a chief minister over here who doesn't want the fairs to go up, whereas it makes economic sense for the fairs to go up. And you talked about investable projects and the concern that they might, you don't know what you're getting into and whether you're going to get an adequate return or not. And so this aspect of, it feels very clear, I think it's obvious to everyone in the room, not just based on the discussion, that the regulatory frameworks need to be strengthened. And CP, you mentioned this as well. How do you get regulators for each of these areas that are going to be independent and are credible and actually that you can enforce what they pass as, not a judgment, but basically if somebody says this is what the tariff is going to be, to make this a political football, to negotiate whether it's going to be 10 rupees or not, seems like the credibility of the system is at stake. So if I can start with you. You know, I find it, I'm very new. So I mean, much of what you gentlemen are saying, I completely agree with it. I mean, that the politician should have nothing to do with fixing the tariffs because the politician is responsive to an entirely different set of pulls and pressures, which is the vote. Whereas you need an independent regulator who makes a determination based on empirically verifiable data. But let me tell you, I mean, there are some things we should not. We are completing some projects well before time. I mean, it's not as if all projects are getting delayed. The Lucknow Metro was supposed to be completed in three years. It was done in two years. The Kochi one again has been done well before time. So there are areas where we have been. But I find it amazing to come to terms with the reality that for 70 years after our independence, we didn't have a regulator in the real estate sector. I mean, urban infrastructure is what all this is all about. And look at the mismatch it has created. I mean, first of all, I think to give housing, the status of an industry infrastructure, to have GST, to have RERA, to have the insolvency bill, you've got all of these there. I think it will clean up the sector. My view, I may just turn out to be not a totally initiated new minister, but I think this will help. But how are we going to go about it? First and foremost, even in the real estate market, we have a total mismatch. We did a technical study in 2011, which showed that there were 18.7 million units shot. But the same study found, we had 11 million surplus units in the higher end of the market. And this is the affordable housing. Now, I personally think, and this is to take up what point that our lady colleague and what our friend from Goldman said, is there no shortage of money? At least I'm not convinced that there is. If not in India, there is money outside. But you need to be able to package that into something which appears easy to understand and comprehensible for somebody willing to make a decision to get a return on. And I think that's what we need to do. And once we do that, we also clean up some of the other areas. Deals, I personally think it's criminal to kick around project clearances like football, what you produce in the process, you produce not only just cost and time overruns, but you produce an entire derailment. And I think that is something the Modi government has realized. That's why you find more action which has taken place since 2014. I'm not trying to make a political point out. No, it's not. Every government builds on what the previous government has done. The point I'm making is that here he is driving this, it's a top-down ribbon. And in otherwise skeptical or somewhat lethargic bureaucracy has no option but to keep pace with that. And I think that's the change which will drive it. I, again, I don't want to take too much of time, but I agree with just about everything that was said here. I mean, there's nothing in which I find disagreement. I mean, I have a tendency to bring my own projects back in there. But if we can get this right, I think the India story, I mean, if you look at China's experience, it was all infrastructure, it was housing. I think we could do it. Okay, Keko, do you have a point on this in terms of what you would like to see from a regulator perspective, not just the overall regulatory framework, but- Let's see, thank you very much for a very good question. I can probably say only two things. First of all, setting appropriate level tariff for power or subway or water, whatever, is very difficult questions. Not only India, every single country, even including like developed country, have an issue. So second point, setting the price of tariff is not a science, it's a little bit of art. That's why I mentioned, I just like to have government to think about, to set the right appropriate level of the tariff to recover the cost. However, if it's not possible in a shorter term, government have to think about the provide some level financial support if they like to leverage the private investors immediately. So this is a big issue. Sorry, sorry, this is not a probably answer that you're expecting, but I think that's as much as I can say right now. Well, you know, the aspect of having a credible independent regulator in sector after sector is an issue that we have struggled with, I would say over the years in many sectors, I think we're there in many sectors, it's still a work in progress, but it's very clear that if we don't have independent credible regulators in each of these areas, it's gonna be tough for the private sector to believe that they will actually make economic returns on projects that they're investing in. Yes, that's, I agree with you. Okay, great. So we have a little over 10 minutes left, so I'm gonna open it up to the audience for questions. And if you don't have any questions, I have a bunch of questions I'm happy to ask. So any, yes, Ajit, somebody can get a mic. We already have very over-regulated world. And in India, you must have, it has a unique way of implementing regulatory processes. So you have a lot of regulatory regulators, you have to take the electricity regulator as it works at all. It's meant for a public utility and it has been at best just in existence. When it comes to things like RERA, as you put it, it's two private sector transactions, what do you need a regulator for? There's been a cry that in road sector, there should be a regulator. These are simple contracts to be enforced. What do we need a regulator for? Because the way the tolling is practiced in the country is that the toll rate is decided, everything is decided. So only one parameter on which you bid for the toll, for the concession. So when it comes to this, it's not in the hands of the toll operator to increase the toll for which you need a regulator. So you have a little bit of excessive regulation. Good part of the developed world, when it did its basic development and reached prosperity, did not have any of these things. So are we putting in excessive regulation in India at too soon? Maybe it's required, maybe a developed world requires it because it needs regulation at that stage. At this stage, for what? I think we are over-regulated. We have a unique practice of regulation, implementation here. Our regulators regulate every day something new. It is a problem. Okay, Somat, I'm going to throw this ball to you. So, just the specific point, Ajit was talking about, which is if you take the power sector, for example, that why do we need any more regulations? Actually, I can extend what Ajit is saying and say we're not just an over-regulated country, but we're an over-governed country. We have too many governance frameworks. And the funny part is that in the last 70 years, nothing has changed in our governance framework. So the exact system that we had 70 years ago at the time we got independence is the same system we have right now, the same bureaucracy, the same political setup, the same municipalities, the same state governments, and the same interaction between all of them. And different governments have chosen to work them in different ways, but fundamentally, structurally, nothing has changed. My question to Mr. Puri would be that if he has to do what he has to do in his ministry, maybe the smartest thing to do to attack first, sir, would be instead of trying to carry out all these schemes, please try to figure out how should the municipal governments work better with the state governments, should work better with the central governments. And if you can fix that governance framework during your stay as a minister, I think that will leave a much more sustainable method for this problem to continue to be addressed, even some other ministers show up. And that is where I think to some extent, the government's effort should also be focused towards, which is much more about trying to resolve how to govern the country. And once you set up a much better and more efficient governance framework, whether it's a bureaucratic reforms or legal reforms or political reforms or whatever have you, then you'll have a much more stronger instrumentality to address all of these issues that we've just talked about. Today, those institutions of governance are very weak. We do not have the right expertise. We do not have the right technical knowledge. And you know, my pet example is, as an IS officer, you're sent to a district for training for 10 years. Suddenly you're put into the ministry of industries, then you're in the ministry of power, then you go on a tourism, then you go into something else. All within a span of one or two years, how can you be effective in so many different contexts? It's just impossible. Can I come in on that? Yes, sir, if I can ask you to answer the specific question minister around how the municipalities can work better. I think some of this narrative is being defined as rather being, you know, is unfolding without a full knowledge of the facts. It's not the same government. It's not the same way of doing business. There's a fundamental difference, let me tell you. Up to 2014, the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Mission or whatever exact abbreviation was, was a control freak kind of operation run from Delhi, where you had a situation where the, I think the ministry was called something else, you know, urban development perhaps. Sat in Delhi and worked it out for all the state governments. One of the first things that the prime minister did when he came in was to change that and basically altered the governance and the architecture to define this work. What did he do? He allowed all the state governments to do it. Now all the state governments in turn need their municipalities. There's a lot of work going on there. Now I'd be happy to share it. I don't think we have the time. Look, there's a fundamental difference when we view this from the Western mindset. I've lived a lot in New York and in European cities. The situation there is very different. You have one elected mayor. You know, Giuliani can come into New York City and he can deal with the crime syndicates and throw them out. How much power does the mayor have in the Indian system? In Delhi, the mayors are elected for one year. So yes, we are trying to do all that, please. I mean, if this subject had been redefining that, I mean, I was India's permanent representative in New York and I've done multilateral diplomacy. I did the MDGs and I came to the SDGs. You know, one of the things that somebody whom I worked with said as well, this guy's dealing with the same thing again. Out of the 17 SDGs, 15 of them are dealt with by our urban local bodies. Now what you have to do is to empower your urban local bodies and believe me, there's a lot of talent in there. And secondly, please, let's not simplify. IS officers don't come. In fact, I mail dislike the IS more than you because I'm a foreign service officer. I mean, on a serious note. I mean, the guys I've got working in my ministry, you know, the secretary, for instance, has done five years in DDA, five years as additional secretary. So they're all people and believe me, this prime minister selects his bureaucrats after a very careful scrutiny. We don't always have. Just as a private sector has found deficient, I mean, I worked in the private sector, I worked a lot with the private sector. You do the best you can amongst the resources. But I think your general point is a very valid one, that it's not possible for any minister or ministry to micromanage these things. We are dealing with those simultaneously. And it's not just to throw them to the wolves. We are providing the resources. Now, for instance, there are schemes which I would try and put in the public domain where 30% of the project costs are being provided by the central government, where we are trying to encourage municipalities. Pune has raised 200 crores through bonds. There are five or six other municipalities. So precisely the kind of things you're talking about are being done. What is happening is that when we tend to view urban issues through the lens of the government, we tend to say, well, nothing happened. I was a cynic till I came here. But I realized part of it is due to the fact that I myself was not educated. I'm still getting educated. A lot of work is being done and I think we'll get there. Okay. Did you want to add something, Sivit? No, no, I just wanted to say that, you know, one of the things that the minister alluded to when he was speaking earlier was about this entire work that one is going on in the area of smart cities. And there, of course, we were all locked in when smart cities came in with the issue of urban local bodies, mindsets of, say, for instance, L1. I think it's a breakthrough today to see that mindset changing in the urban local bodies and it need not necessarily be contracts awarded on the basis of L1. That itself is a huge change as one sees when one strives for quality. I think there are fundamental changes that one has seen them. But it requires that to be carried forward to different sectors within the infrastructure set up, so to say, to see how we can get the best of products when you say that when some of our projects lack the type of quality that is expected out of them. So that's the change. There's a huge change in mindset that really doesn't need to only come into the urban local bodies or others, but it needs to also come into people. And one of the things that we need to see in urban projects, say, for instance, is participation of the citizens in terms in ownership. So there is a lot that needs to be done in all front to see that the type of expectations that we have can be fulfilled. And I don't think the role is only with that the role of the government. You know, but some of the bids have come in for the smart cities and I'm not in a position to dive into that. I mean, it's heartwarming, the kind of people who are winning those bids. I mean, super world class. Wonderful. Well, I think we are almost at time. So let me just do a quick summary of some of the key points. So I think clearly a lot has been done and I'm hoping that there's more hope that comes out of the session today than otherwise. But it feels like there are some things that are very clear. We need, you know, we talked about the need for investable projects. You know, everyone talked about this. Money is not the issue. There's lots of money sloshing around in the world looking for investable projects. But how do you package them in a way that investors understand what the risk return profile is? I think it's also very important to make sure. I think we talked about the need for independent regulators, credible regulators. Ajit has a different point of view. We need to figure out what's the right balance. But clearly, you know, people feel that there needs to be a way for somebody to come in and have a point of view in terms of what the tariffs ought to be for different sectors. We also talked about the need for a corporate bond market, especially long-term capital. That's we've been talking about this for a long time. I don't know when it's gonna happen, but hopefully soon. And then we touched upon a few other things. And I think the point that you made, Sumant, is, you know, when you talked about the fragmentation of the experience that IS officers may have. The point that I would agree with him, Minister Puri, is that there's a need for experts also to play a role, not just the generalists, you know, to have a point of view in terms of what needs to be done. And so maybe finding a way to bring, increasing the level of expertise and capability in each of the areas that we work on. Absolutely, absolutely. And experts should, in fact, we need more of them. We need more of them. We need more of them. And not just the generalists. And Sri, can I just say one thing? Because I think some of the tone of this is urgent sounding, which is being confused with being pessimistic. I think we're optimists. The Indian economy has grown 5x in the last 15 years in spite of some of the restrictions that are being loosened up as we see today. In 20 years, this is going to be a $10 trillion economy and 30 or 40% of the world's working age population is gonna live on this subcontinent. What choice do we have? Like, this is an important pressing global issue is to get the infrastructure and to get the plumbing of India right. We have no choice. We have no choice. And the good news is that it feels like there's money out there that's looking for investable assets that we need to create. And if we do that, we will fix, I'm hoping, the infrastructure problem. So on that note of hope, we will end. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.