Prime Minister Imran Khan stressed upon active participation of the private sector in the country’s development process and said the government was fully committed to provide conducive environment to it. The prime minister was informed that the work on 50 different public-private partnership development projects worth Rs. 2,000 billion under the PSDP were underway in different phases, whereas 35 other projects are under process of approval. It was further apprised that two important projects including Sialkot-Kharian and Sukkar-Hyderabad Motorways with a cost of Rs 233 billion had been approved by the Public-Private Partnership Authority. Some critics of Public Private partnership argued that under 1973 constitution article 38-D, Government of Pakistan guaranteed that the state shall provide all basic necessities of life including healthcare, and social services to its subjects. The opposition to Public Private Partnership is incorrect interpretation of this constitutional provision. In fact, it does not mean that government itself provide all these facilities instead to legislate and ensure provision of all such necessities to the public through private entities on low cost. During implementation of this rule government of Pakistan established several entities to provide necessities such as electricity, gas, telephone, air travel to the public and all such entities proved to be big headache for the government and the public. Most of the service provider entities owned by the state are facing huge financial losses and administrative problems due to politically motivated policies instead of business-oriented strategies. This phenomenon had pushed the government into problems of circular debt, provision of subsidies to these entities for running their operations, pay and pension problems of their employees etc. This model of development has been flopped particularly in Asia because of corruption, nonpayment of utilities bills and loss of resources by the public and service providers. Public Private partnership is a better way of incorporating private businesses in public development projects. This method has been successfully implemented by India for construction of various mega-projects including Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai airports during past. Earlier, Pakistan Railway has successfully initiated joint venture with the partnership of private sector for operating some of its secondary routes. Government must encourage the policy of public private partnership and limited government role only to monitoring or supervisory level.
