Impact Statement

Improved data-driven decision-making for infrastructure projects in India, while attracting more international investors in the sector.

Background

The infrastructure sector is a critical component of a country's economic growth and development. It encompasses a wide range of projects, including transportation, energy, water, and urban development. However, the sector faces significant challenges in terms of data availability, accuracy, and accessibility. The lack of a comprehensive database hinders informed decision-making, which has unfavorably affected aspects like sector planning, investment decisions, project due diligence, risk assessment, as well as delays across various stages of project implementation.  Furthermore, availability of a comprehensive database can not only address the above-mentioned challenges but can also aid in conceptualizing suitable policy & regulatory interventions for enhancing efficiencies in project conceptualizing and development, reducing logistics costs, designing new financial instruments, identifying bottlenecks in advance, and for creating newer avenues for arranging requiring funding for the infrastructure sector in the country.

The ultimate client was an Infrastructure Financing Institution, created by Government of India to address funding gaps in this sector.

Problem Statement

The existing infrastructure project databases are incomplete, outdated, and fragmented, resulting in a slew of missing information, including pre-feasibility reports, market assessment data, and project financing details. Furthermore, there are gaps in the relevant eco-system in the form of maturity of processes, mandates to different data generating organizations, and data verification through collaboration.

Solution Provided

The proposed solution involves developing a strategy and framework for creating a comprehensive infrastructure project database that captures project details from conceptualization to completion. The database will include critical information such as project financing data, lifecycle events, and updates. A suitable institutional structure, along with relevant processes & systems, will be established to ensure adequate stakeholder participation, data quality assurance, and user-friendly usage.

The solution is developed based on three key hypotheses:
 

• Avoiding duplication and leveraging existing mechanisms, structures, and data would be helpful.
• Pitfalls in existing mechanisms should be proactively addressed, such as lack of comprehensiveness, compliance, accuracy, usability, etc.
• A unique and ground-up mechanism is required for project financing data, lifecycle events, and private sector projects.
  

The solution is evaluated against multiple parameters, including institutional mechanisms, compliances and incentives, capturing project financing data, lifecycle events, and private sector projects, cost and feasibility, time requirements, legal, regulatory, and data security considerations, identification of and acceptance from relevant entities, and processes for quality, security, and updates.

Impact on Client

The enhanced database will enable various domestic and international stakeholders of infrastructure sector in India to make informed decisions, reduce project risks, and improve resource allocation. It will also facilitate better monitoring and evaluation of projects, leading to improved infrastructure development outcomes. The comprehensive database will provide a single source of truth for infrastructure projects, enabling stakeholders to access reliable and timely information, and make data-driven decisions.