The man behind the PPPs

'The Difficulty of Being Gajendra Haldea' tells the tale of a civil servant who was determined to change the level of infrastructure in India by providing a framework for private participation

The Difficulty of Being Gajendra Haldea

Editor: Sebastian Morris 

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 344

Price: Rs 699

Infrastructure has been accorded the highest priority by the government and private sector in India in recent years with new and stalled projects in highways, ports, power, aviation and railways being at the forefront of nation-building initiatives. The Difficulty of Being Gajendra Haldea: Reflections on his Life and Legacy is a timely contribution that stands as a record of the early steps towards establishing a healthy introduction of private investment in national infrastructure creation.  As the 23 essays edited by Sebastian Morris and written by former colleagues, friends and a younger brother of the late Gajendra Haldea show, the initial phase of ushering in “second generation” reforms was anything but easy. They involved “the active creation of policy, frameworks, law and organisation” to take delivery of services especially in the infrastructure sector.

The essays in this collection show how diligently Haldea approached the task, first as a middle-ranking bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance and then as a maverick in the erstwhile Planning Commission. Haldea proactively created policy frameworks in the private public participation (PPP) sphere for the power sector to begin with, then across various sectors from aviation to railways. His meticulously drafted model concession agreements (MCAs), which were applicable across infrastructure sectors, live on gloriously after him.

The essays in this volume are written by people close to Haldea as colleagues in the IAS such as Ashok Lavasa, Najeeb Jung and N K Singh or as an admiring but critical younger brother, Prithvi Haldea.  There is a prescient article by Montek Singh Ahluwalia to whom Haldea reported to in both finance ministry and Planning Commission; it puts into perspective the struggles Haldea had to undergo to put forward what he believed to be the best way forward for India.  Vedmani Tiwari, Namita Mehrotra, Anna Roy and Praveen Mahto’s writings speak of how he guided younger officers to make informed decisions.  Academics

G Raghuram and  Mr Morris have used rigorous academic standards to evaluate his work.  Bharat Salhotra, Pratyush Kumar and Rajiv Lal have seen Haldea from outside the government, working on projects in his advisory role to various ministries.

The volume, however, is more than the sum of personal or professional recollections about Gajendra Haldea. It tells the tale of a civil servant who chose to be different from those who interpreted rules to help themselves or those who only served time. He was a person determined to make a difference and who worked doggedly to facilitate and formulate the policy framework and legislation to change the level of infrastructure in the country by providing a proper framework so that the PPP concept would become a suitable vehicle for taking up infrastructure projects.

It will be simplistic to see this as mere biographical reminiscences of a bureaucrat by his admiring family, friends and colleagues. The collection of essays has an underlying and to some extent an understated narrative of the coming of age of the private sector in a big way into infrastructure. It was, as Mr Lavasa who worked as director in the finance ministry with Haldea, narrates in his chapter: “Gajendra Haldea: The King of Spades”.

For everything that was considered infrastructure (power, ports, shipping, railways, civil aviation, coal, telecommunication), Haldea was the point person in the Ministry of Finance and few in the Government of India had as much integrated understanding of these sectors as he did, especially as the government was transitioning from state control to private investment.

It is in Haldea’s centrality to India’s transition to private investment and PPP-led infrastructure growth that the essays in this volume become the story of the first 25 years of the entry of private players in infrastructure. Haldea must get the credit for being perspicacious enough to see that long term standard bidding documents and concession agreements were firmed up to avoid arbitrariness in the future. That even changes in government in the 1990s did not alter the road taken meant that the initial foundations were well thought through. The MCAs he personally drew up were crucial in giving shape to various PPP projects. Haldea claimed intellectual property rights for these MCAs and got the government to agree, provided the government got free use of these documents. These documents and the Central Electricity Acts, 2003, will stand testimony to Haldea’s foresight and vision.

The book celebrates the life of Haldea as a principled civil servant, a man of erudition and skill as well someone who cared for charitable works and giving his children a good upbringing. Mr Jung’s recollections of their years at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration as probationers offers insights into his determination. The fact that he claimed — and got the government to give — the Probationer’s Gold medal after two and a half decades as the rightful claimant shows the sharpness of his legal mind. Even after a pro bono stint at Planning Commission till 2014, he retired to a life as an active member of society, writing articles pointing out the various shortcomings

of institutions. Had Covid-19 not intervened and led to his untimely death, a proper autobiography from the man himself may have been available. This volume with an interwoven collection of essays fills the vacuum most effectively.

The reviewer is a civil servant