Involve private sector to build roads, hospitals, schools: PM

The Prime Minister on Tuesday called for a greater role of public-private partnership in building roads, hospitals and schools in the country though without compromising the government's commitment to the poor.

"One consequence of scarce resource is that we should fully explore the scope for private public partnership...we also need to explore the scope for PPP in health, education and urban development," Singh said chairing the meeting of the full planning commission to review the state of the economy and the energy policy.

However, the government has to keep in mind that the PPP initiatives "must not weaken its commitment to inclusiveness."

He directed the planning commission to interact with the ministries to exploit opportunities for PPP and said, "the commission should also interact with the states and advise them to ensure they make full use of these possibilities".

However, Singh said even though the private sector has been involved in infrastructure projects, progress has been short of expectations.

He said the government would be taking steps to streamline the PPP projects. While the private sector has been involved in a small way in upgrading government-owned industrial training institutes and certain health initiatives, the PPP projects have not really taken off in a big way in these areas.