Large investment proposals

In other words, the proposals will be enthusiastically received, their merits eulogised in general terms before the public, and in the process, the government would also pick up laurels claiming that the offers were an expression of confidence in them. Even after all that, projects do not materialise because of our lack of expertise in handling them.

Why we add this remark is because when negotiations start on a mega project and intense bargaining begins, it invariably becomes a rather hard-sell affair. Tangles get formed, timetables are upset, and frustrations creep in as decision is delayed. After all, the government's original upbeat mood and the wide publicity the prestigious projects had received created a mood of expectancy among the people that those would be materialising sooner than later. Besides, the great need for critically massive investments in our economy has created a pressing sense of urgency for seeing them implemented before long.

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In handling and negotiating mega projects with the offering side, we have shown our deficiency, not so much in our resolve to protect national interest as in actually clinching the best deal for the country. We have often burnt our fingers. We don't seem to approach a multimillion dollar investment proposal with any standard notion of a cost-benefit analysis framework. Actually, we have none for the different categories of big projects. What we do is form a committee post-haste to negotiate, that may be fairly representative of the functional heads but can boast very little by way of any proven expertise in negotiation within the team. In fact, all the stakeholders may not have been involved in the exercise. Then when the process gets stuck ministers speak with many voices compounding the situation. And, with vested interest intrusions into the proceedings what's-there-in-it-for-me murmur, if not a clamour, could set in.

Keeping in view the various oil deals, KAFCO experience, and the ongoing Tata and elevated expressway negotiations with Thailand we proffer the suggestion that we should bring in some select foreign experts adept in the contemporary art and science of negotiations to help build up a reservoir of national domestic capacity for negotiations.