Maiden PPP deal likely after a long wait

Jasim Uddin Haroon
Country's first ever deal on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) project is expected to be signed between an Indian company and the directorate of health services of the government of Bangladesh in November next.
The government included the PPP concept in its annual development in the fiscal 2009-10.
But it could not spend a penny in that fiscal due to bureaucratic tangles and complexities.
In 2010-11, the government raised the allocation to Tk 30 billion which, too, was not used. The amount was carried over to next fiscal and the same process continued to be repeated.
To expedite the PPP initiatives, the government established an office of the PPP under the Prime Minister's Office in September in 2010.
The PPP office, at last, has finalised a project for setting up two haemodialysis centres, one in Dhaka and the other in Chittagong.
Sources at the office, however, said this project might take much time as it is yet to complete vetting required for concessionaire issues.
The PPP office has sent its file to the ministry of law a couple of weeks back to scrutinise detailed business rules of the project, sources said.
A source at the PPP office said under the present system, it needs at least 34 months to finalise a project.
He claimed that the PPP office was now working on how to reduce time to 22 months instead of 34.
However, the organisation which might sign contract with the office of the DG health is a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company named Sandor Medicaid's Pvt. Limited.
The Indian company will install a total of 110 kidney dialysis machines -70 at the NIKDU (National Institute of Kidney Diseases and Urology) in Dhaka and 40 in Chittagong Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) at a cost of Tk 250 million.
The NIKDU, a centre of excellence in renal care, is a 110- bed hospital in Dhaka, now equipped with 21 machines at its existing dialysis centre.
On the other hand, the CMCH is now equipped with 11 dialysis machines.
It will provide services to the patients for a period of 10 years with each dialysis costing Tk 2,190.
Sources at the PPP office said this will be much cheaper as the average rate is Tk 2,600. The same service costs over Tk 4,000 in private hospitals.
But it will provide services at discounted rates to the poor patients.
The PPP office sources hinted that if everything goes well, the Indian company might launch its services within six months after signing the contract.
 "They will just install the machines at the ready spaces even without civil works and decorations," said a senior official at the PPP office.
However, of the Tk 30 billion PPP funds, the government established a company for funding PPP projects named the Bangladesh Infrastructure Financing Fund (BIFF) with a fund of Tk 25 billion.
The PPP office has Tk 1.0 billion for conducting technical surveys on projects.
Apart from this, Tk 4.0 has been kept as viability gap fund to inject money in those projects where fund will be necessary considering national and public interests.
    jasimharoon@yahoo.com