Offshore wind in Tamil Nadu: from potential to reality

by Akshay Jaitly, Charmi Mehta, Renuka Sane and Ajay Shah.

Foundations

The world of renewables is comprised primarily of solar and wind. Of these, solar electricity suffers from the limitation of dwindling away in the evening, at precisely the time at which electricity demand rises. This makes wind particularly important. There is a good deal of onshore wind generation in India. What is different and potentially superior about offshore wind?

1. Wind speeds tend to be higher offshore than on land. A wind turbine operating at a wind speed of 24 kph can generate twice as much energy as a turbine operating at a wind speed of 19 kph (American Geosciences Institute, 2023).
2. The wind offshore tends to be more consistent, with higher power capture for a greater number of hours per day.
3. Onshore wind requires land resources. Offshore wind is built in the open sea where land rights are cheaper, and it is easier to go to bigger blades.
4. Offshore wind does not impose noise pollution upon the human population.

These benefits, of course, come with a problem, that construction of windmills in the high seas is more difficult when compared with building on land. Windmills are best placed at locations with high wind. Figure 1 shows that Tamil Nadu is a hot spot for offshore wind in India. It is interesting to notice that Sri Lanka is also a hotspot for offshore wind (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Wind speeds off the Indian coast

Source: India Wind Potential Atlas (NIWE, 2019).

Figure 2: Wind speeds off Sri Lanka.

Source: Technical Assessment by World Bank, IFC and ESMAP (2020).

There is an analogy between offshore wind in Sri Lanka, and hydel resources in Nepal and Bhutan. Given the correct arrangement of foreign policy (Subramanian, 2023), the Indian private sector can possibly play a leadership role in building electricity generation in Sri Lanka, as has been the case with Bhutan.

Putting these facts together, there is an important natural resource in Tamil Nadu, and its vicinity, through which vast renewable electricity generation can become possible, given the correct configuration of policies and state institutions that create conditions of investibility. We can dare to hope that very large offshore wind generation can take place off the coast of Tamil Nadu, which would attract energy-intensive firms to operate in the region, and enabling sale of electricity into locations far from Tamil Nadu.

Public economics for offshore wind

We can imagine an uncoordinated rush by the private sector to venture out into the seas and put up wind turbines. They would jostle with each other to build on the best sites. Each wind turbine would have to face the problem of transmitting energy to the mainland. There are three areas where policy makers can be useful:

1. Ownership of the sea-bed and property rights: In a world without clarity on property rights, the private sector would experience conflicts when building wind turbines. There is a negative externality as multiple construction projects which are physically near each other impose a certain amount of chaos upon each other, and the presence of a windmill diminishes the energy production of nearby windmills.The sea-bed should be treated as a scarce natural resource, akin to the electromagnetic spectrum. There is a role for the state in establishing property rights, and auctioning off ownership of the sea-bed to private persons. The coercive power of the state would be used to create property rights for private persons, following which private persons would trade in blocks of sea-bed (akin to transactions in privately owned land or on the electromagnetic spectrum), and the government would enforce against encroachment. The negative externality problem during construction can be addressed by modified property rights which decongest each construction site for the construction period, by expanding the notion of property rights associated with each geographical location, to exclude other persons for the period of construction.
2. Economics of transmission: Each wind turbine would have to face the problem of transmitting energy to the mainland. Every generation company would benefit from more convenient access to high capacity transmission lines. There is a natural monopoly problem in the transmission infrastructure - it is likely that a single transmission company will emerge within each geographical area. There is merit in using state power to coerce this firm on open-access rules (so it cannot deny transportation to any private person) and on price regulation.
3. Data as a public good: The government can add value by spending taxpayer money to construct a dataset on wind speed and releasing this into the public domain. This activity involves no use of coercive power, other than the coercion that undergirds taxation. The government would merely release data on a website as a public good, and in no way preclude private persons from expending resources to create data on their own. For the government released data to be credible, it would have to be collected by trusted agencies, experienced in offshore wind data collection; the role for the government should be one of only contracting-out the construction of the data.

While electricity in India is largely a state subject, the sea-bed falls under the union government jurisdiction through Article 297 of the Indian Constitution through which the Parliament has enacted the Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and Other Maritime Zones Act, 1976. Thus we can envision a two-part policy story for offshore wind, where the union government auctions off blocks of sea-bed, and the state government deals with everything connected with electricity. Once the energy reaches landing stations at the shore, it is just ordinary electricity and fits into the mainstream electricity market exactly as with onshore wind turbines.

How the Indian journey has unfolded

The union government has decided that offshore wind production will commence in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. A union government agency named the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) plays an important role in this field including that of being the designated counterparty for contracts. It plays a expansive role, akin to an offshore wind central planner. Transmission will be run by a union government PSU, the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL). No role is envisaged for state governments.

In 2018, NIWE published its first tender for an offshore wind block auction off the Gujarat coast. However, it did not receive bids and consequently had to be called off after multiple extensions (Deshpande, 2021). Since 2022, the Union Government has released (i) a national Strategy Paper for the Establishment of Offshore Wind Energy Projects and (ii) a draft tender for Sea bed leasing for offshore wind energy projects which pertains to locations off the coast of Tamil Nadu. These releases help improve policy predictability.

The proposed contracting model

Project costs in offshore wind are high, particularly in contrast to developing renewable energy plants onshore. Costs also vary as per the depth of waters and distance from shore. Operating offshore wind turbines involves higher maintenance requirements (Koch, 2012). First movers face higher costs on account of uncertainty and the inevitable mistakes.

NIWE has proposed three alternative contracting models in its strategy paper. Model A is for projects where surveys and assessments have been completed, and the site is ready for development. Model B is model A without viability gap funding ("VGF?). Model C is a fully bundled model with end-to-end responsibility placed upon the project developer, including site identification. The tender released (for the sea bed off the coast of Tamil Nadu) follows model A (NIWE, 2023). Table 1 summarises this proposed contract design.

Table 1: Risk-responsibility allocation across proposed offshore wind contracting models

Factors	Risks/responsibility	Model A
Government support	Bridging financing gaps	VGF (Union; unallocated)
	Transmission charges	Waived
Strategic and commercial risks	Identifying sites for offshore wind farms	Gov (Union)
	Site assessment surveys	Gov (Union)
Local factors	Transmission infrastructure	Gov (PGCIL)
	Evacuation of power	Gov (PGCIL)
	Licenses	Private
	Power offtake guarantees	None

Site characteristics have a substantial impact upon the prospective return on equity. The MNRE/NIWE supplies its assessment of each site. A careful examination of the data released by MNRE/NIWE is required. Potential developers may invest significant time and resources in constructing private sector data if there are limitations in the government-released data.

The selected bidder must set up the turbines offshore and connect each turbine to the offshore agglomeration facility (which will be constructed and managed by PGCIL). While the model mentions accessing VGF from the union government, the mechanism is not adequately spelled out. Is this policy strategy conducive to investibility?

i. Site selection and exclusivity:

Site selection is best done by potential wind farm developers. Developers face the consequences of, and are best placed to take decisions on sites when faced with a certain amount of data. They will commission the creation of additional data optimally. Under Model A, sites have been selected by NIWE. We expect that serious developers will construct their own datasets and may chafe at the locations pinned down by NIWE.

The next issue is that of exclusivity. Developers like to have a certain exclusive period, where no other construction takes place, in order to reduce the complexities of coordination across multiple construction projects. The exclusivity period for the sea-bed is set to five years, with a maximum extension of one year. The average time taken to set up a mid-size offshore wind farm, globally, is four years. In India, this is likely to attain a higher value (MOSPI, 2023).

Auctioning the exclusivity period itself can be a way to decide what a 'sufficient' period should be. In countries where confidence in offshore projects has been high, auctions are witnessing site tenures being awarded based on an auction in which the highest bidder wins the site (Exeter, 2022). For example, the Round 4 auction for sites (held in 2021) in England and Wales saw the highest bidder paying Euro 1bn upwards in option fees, payable annually (for ten years) for exclusive sea-bed rights on an 8 GW of offshore wind.

ii. The problem of transmission:

In offshore wind contracts in Northern Europe, the evacuation infrastructure for the electricity is generally created by the developer (and in some cases such as in the UK, later carved out and sold to a third party) or contracted out (separate from the offshore windfarm contract) to a private transmission service provider. Under Model A, this function has been assigned fully to the state-owned transmission company - PGCIL. PGCIL has no prior experience in developing transmission for offshore wind and it carries the burden of being a public sector organisation.

Whether managed by PGCIL or some other firm, regulation is required so that future developers are provided access to non-discriminatory evacuation infrastructure and services, perhaps using common carrier principles. While one block / site is up for auction today, numerous offshore plants will come up in the future in close vicinity. There may be shortages or exorbitant pricing of transmission, particularly in the absence of non-discriminatory access.

In addition to the risks from power evacuation, risks from unscheduled downtimes can induce losses, and contract terms will determine who bears this risk. For example, in Germany, the costs of curtailments/incapacities were transferred to the consumer. In contrast, costs remained with the project owner in China despite their lack of control over the risk (Gatzert, 2016). The government's decision to manage the complete evacuation responsibility may prove problematic in the event that higher transmission losses or shutouts imposes important risks upon the developer. If the preference is for power evacuation to be managed by PGCIL, contractual provisions on liquidated damages must adequately cover for downtimes that are not caused by the fault of the developer and other transmission losses.

iii. Regulatory burdens

Unlike transmission and distribution, power generation has no market failure problem. It is hence important to envisage a contract design that harnesses private sector expertise, without added layers of government involvement. At present, establishing an offshore wind farm will require a set of seventeen different clearances and licences from a host of ministries, including the prerequisite of block approval from the Ministry of Defence. Seven of the seventeen clearances are necessary even before one can make a bid, and the rest are post-award. The sector also includes a specific licensing regime that extends to how new offshore assets connect and interact with the grid. This requirement for multiple permissions detract from the vision of property rights in the hands of a private person.

Further, approvals and no-objection certificates may be required from State Governments for transmission and evacuation infrastructure-related provisioning and any other clearances as may be legally required to establish and operate offshore power plants - as in the case of oil and gas pipelines (NIWE, 2022a, NIWE, 2022b).

It might be useful to consider if some project-related (as opposed to bidder related) approvals can be obtained ahead of time and made part of the bid package. This will reduce risk for bidders and may lead to more attractive bids.

Lastly, as with any nascent industry, policy and regulatory frameworks are likely to evolve and change over time - and existing concessionaires should be contractually protected from this through adequate 'change in law' and 'change of scope' provisions.

Under the present policy strategy, offshore wind generation requires the firm to have a high level of government engagement, and exposure to policy risk. This problem may encourage foreign firms to find local partners and enhance the required rate of return, i.e. hamper investibility.

iv. The role of the union government:

The present policy strategy suggests a offshore wind industry that is run out of the union government. This vision will sit uneasily with the primary role of the state government in electricity regulation and the electricity business once the energy hits the shore. Since vessel availability and transport infrastructure are critical to offshore wind farm development and often contribute to delays, cost overruns ((Koch, 2012), and litigation, the State's port infrastructure can be adapted to facilitate project management. Proximity of the Thoothukudi port to the proposed site is an advantage, and logistics facilities such as (i) storage areas for component assembly and manufacturing, and (ii) berth infrastructure can be developed to support upcoming offshore wind plants (Auroville Consulting, 2022). Such thinking is downplayed in a union-dominated policy process.

Assessing the outlook

Our analysis suggests that there is a considerable gap between the natural resource potential for offshore wind in South Asia and its tangible translation into RE capacity. The sea-bed lease tender was released in September 2023 with a deadline of 28 November 2023. In our knowledge, no bids have emerged.

Electricity is a concurrent list subject under the Indian Constitution, with both the union government and the state government having the right to make law over aspects of the sector. Sea-bed jurisdiction appears to clearly lie with the union. It would make sense to rely on the state government to a greater extent.

There are significant manufacturing and transportation challenges associated with the bulky parts of offshore wind facilities. Both Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are strong in manufacturing, and are natural sites where a private industry could develop that will undertake this manufacturing, and play a role in offshore wind sites hundreds of kilometres away.

The arguments presented earlier in this article show that thinking from first principles, the role of the state in this field is (a) Establishing property rights with auctions of chunks of sea-bed, including a special kind of exclusivity during construction; (b) Ensuring open access and price regulation for the natural monopoly of transmission; (c) Possibly adding value by constructing and releasing a robust dataset with wind speed. There is merit in evolving the policy strategy towards these three pillars.

References

American Geosciences Institute. 2023. What are the advantages and disadvantages of offshore wind farms?, National Academy of Sciences.

Deshpande, T. 2021. Why India's Offshore Wind Energy Potential Remains Untapped, IndiaSpend. 26 November 2021.

NIWE. 2023. Strategy for Establishment of Offshore Wind Energy Projects, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India. September 2023.

Koch, C. 2012. Contested overruns and performance of offshore wind power plants, Construction Management and Economics, 30:8, 609-622.

Infrastructure and Project Management Division, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. 2023. Quarterly Report on Mega Projects.

Laido et al. 2022. Impacts of Competitive Seabed Allocation for Offshore Wind Energy, University of Exeter. April 2022.

Gatzert et al. 2016. Risks and risk management of renewable energy projects: The case of onshore and offshore wind parks, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 60. July 2016.

Auroville Consulting. 2022. Unlocking Offshore Wind in Tamil Nadu. Sustainable Energy Transformation Series.

Subramanian, A. 2023. Answers in the offshore wind.The Indian Express. 23 March 2023.

Akshay Jaitly and Renuka Sane are Co-founder and Research Director, respectively, at TrustBridge Rule of Law Foundation; Charmi Mehta and Ajay Shah are Research Associate and Co-founder, respectively, at XKDR Forum.

The difficulties of asset monetisation in the transmission sector

by Akshay Jaitly, Charmi Mehta, Rishika R, and Ajay Shah.

Introduction

About 95% of nationwide transmission assets in India are presently owned by the government company, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL). A transformation of electricity transmission systems is required to achieve decarbonisation, reflecting the distributed geography of renewables generation in India, and the eventual de-commissioning of present coal-based power generation. Several estimates suggest a total required investment, for electricity transmission, of over INR 2 trillion over the next five years.

Given the public finance and managerial constraints in the Indian state, private investment is critical to achieve the required investments. Land, compliances and clearances impede pure private greenfield transmission projects, so one method there is for the government to do development and then monetise the assets. Existing assets are relatively straightforward to operate and risk-free, with a steady stream of user charges, where private sector participation is then readily achieved.

While attempts at attracting private investment in this field have taken place from 2006, the outcomes so far have been poor. One response to this was in October 2022, where the Ministry of Power issued guiding principles for states to monetise 14% of transmission assets that are currently owned and operated by state-owned transmission utilities. This involved a new contracting mechanism: the "Acquire, Operate, Maintain and Transfer (AOMT) model".

This is the temporary transfer of asset ownership (i.e. not a sale) to private firms in exchange of an upfront payment. Firms are expected obtain cash from the operations (user charges) of the asset, depending on the model deployed for monetisation. Asset monetisation has twin benefits for governments - first, it provides short-term liquidity to the public sector entity in the form of upfront payment for the asset(s); and second, it allows the government to delegate the operations and maintenance (O&M) to the private sector, enabling public sector entities to harness private sector capabilities and reduce their scope.

How previous asset monetisation models worked

Asset monetisation has been used as a contracting model for O&M since 2018 when the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) began using the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model, which draws on ideas from Australia, North America and Europe. Besides this, InvITs have been used in the transmission sector. There is significant knowledge and experience around InvITs and TOT contracts in India: they constitute the baseline against which the new AOMT can be understood. Table 1 provides a comparison of the three models on key features.

Table 1: A comparison of key features across contracting models - InvITs, TOT and AOMT.

	InvITs	Toll Operate Transfer	AOMT
Description	Transfer of assets to listed registered trusts regulated by Securities Exchange Board of India which issues units to multiple investors. Comparable to equity for a limited time period.	Temporary transfer of asset ownership for an upfront payment from the private party who is granted this concession. The private party is also granted rights to collect user charges, and other charges to finance the O&M of the asset.	Temporary transfer of ownership of assets for upfront payment from the private party, in turn allowing them to operate and maintain the asset, and generate revenue from it.
Regulation of investment vehicle	Trust to be registered by SEBI; existing licences applicable	SPV/ investor entity regulated by contract terms	Transmission licence transfer/re-registration to be approved by State electricity regulator
Regulation of user charges	Approved by electricity regulator and governed by Transmission Service Agreement	As per National Highway Toll Determination Rules	Approved by electricity regulator and governed by Transmission Service Agreement
Mode of returns	Returns from dividends, interest and capital gains on units	Toll charges	Transmission charges (varied across states)
O&M	Public	Private	Private
Ownership	Pooled; investors	Single or consortium	Single or consortium

The Toll-Operate-Transfer model in Indian Highways

In 2018, the NHAI bundled approximately 500 km of highways for the first auction, and potential investors were to bid the upfront payment they would make for the bundle. In return, investors receive the right to operate the highway and collect tolls generated from it during the concession period. This model provides the awarded party autonomy on operations and revenue generation, eliminating the involvement of the public authority in O&M.

The NHAI has so far attempted to monetise ten bundles (rounds) of assets with varied rates of success. The lack of bids, undervalued bids, and low price recovery led to auctions being stalled, bids annulled and fresh auctions being called, several times. Most recently, the 9th and 10th TOT bundles up for auction were halted as they did not meet the reserve price set by NHAI. Despite using a familiar model, the implementation has not yielded positive outcomes. Large value disputes in highway contracting, low standards of public disclosure and the inability to make accurate revenue growth projections are some of the reasons for its substandard outcomes.

The InvIT model in the transmission sector

In 2020, the PGCIL became the first publicly owned company to set up its own investment trust (InvIT). The PGCIL InvIT holds transmission assets worth INR 7500 crores and it opened for subscription in early 2021. Within two days of the offer, 59% of the units were subscribed. When the session was closed, PGCIL benefited from a 3% premium over the issue price and the initial public offer was subscribed 4.83 times. During this period, investor perception was also positive with analysts predicting that the InvIT would yield steady long-term returns. PGCIL eventually auctioned 27.41 crore units, earning INR 2,736.02 crore in May 2021. However, concerns with the lack of transparent price discovery and taxation norms on long-term capital investments have prompted PGCIL to rethink its InvIT plans. Additionally, the retention of O&M as a function of the public sector entity may create a hesitation to investment by private entities.

Neither of the two distinct asset monetisation models that India has experimented with achieved the outcomes it set out to achieve. On one hand, InvIT provides a diversification of risk but O&M remains with the government. On the other hand, TOT provides autonomy over O&M but ownership is not diversified. This serves as a case study for the design of new models for asset monetisation, and whether it can address the concerns of previous models used.

There is no reason why an InvIT structure cannot be augmented to also include the contracting out of O&M functions to a private entity. This will bring in private sector efficiency and allay the fears of investors. There are two ways in which the InvIT could be presently undertaking O&M: (i) it is possible that PGCIL is charging the InvIT a fee and doing the O&M, or (ii) O&M staff may have been transferred with the assets and the InvIT is doing its own O&M. Either way the function is retained with the government, making it a potential point of concern for investors. To eliminate this friction, a third model is preferable, where O&M functions of an InvIT are contracted out. This could have been a plausible design option since InvITs have been around for a while, instead of opting for a fully different model.

Concerns about the AOMT

The importance of private investment in transmission is well taken. The question lies in the pathway to a solution. We recognise the immense complexities of getting up to a well-functioning institutional mechanism. We also recognise that different sectors may warrant different approaches to doing the same things. There are two main concerns with the AOMT model:

1. The contract design is not suited to state government assets due to problems of state-level electricity governance; the overall lack of control on streams and decisions of revenue (user charges) is a factor that models should solve for; and
2. The unfamiliarity with the model among state governments (and asset monetisation generally). There are two existing mechanisms for doing this, with precedents and understanding within infrastructure, finance and government establishments: InvIT and TOT. These represent natural pathways to take for electricity transmission assets.

It has been over one year since the introduction of the model and it has seen no uptake from states so far. States have expressed concerns with the design and feasibility of the model. When the Ministry of Power proposed AOMT, there was a need for a first principles argument and public consultation, about why a third strategy was proposed. They needed to show the difficulties that would arise through the three existing pathways, and how the modifications chosen under the AOMT model addressed these difficulties.

References

Ministry of Power, Guiding principles for Asset Monetisation in the Transmission sector for state governments, October 2022.

Utpal Bhaskar, Power firms finalize models for asset monetisation plan, Livemint, 2022.

KPMG, Global Infrastructure Asset Recycling and Infrastructure Capital, June 2020.

Charmi Mehta and Bhargavi Zaveri, Monetisation lessons from NHAI, The Business Standard, March 2021.

Surya Sarathi Ray, NHAI cancels two projects on low bids, Financial Express, March 2022.

P Manoj, NHAI annuls highest bid of Sekura Roads for ToT Bundle 10 as it was below reserve price, The Economic Times, Sept 2022.

Charmi Mehta and Susan Thomas, Identifying roadblocks in highway contracting: lessons from NHAI litigation, The LEAP Blog, July 2022.

Shreya Jai, PowerGrid's asset monetisation via InvITs gets Cabinet go-ahead, Business Standard, Sept 2020.

Sundar Sethuraman, PowerGrid Infrastructure Investment Trust ends debut trade at 3% premium, Business Standard, May 2021.

Sunil Shankar Matkar, PowerGrid InvIT IPO opens: Should you subscribe?, MoneyControl, April 2021.

Utpal Bhaskar, PGCIL drops second InvIT tranche plan, LiveMint, Jan 2023.

Akshay Jaitly is co-founder of Trustbridge Rule of Law Foundation and Trilegal, Charmi Mehta is a researcher with XKDR Forum, Rishika R is a researcher with Trustbridge Rule of Law Foundation, and Ajay Shah is co-founder of XKDR Forum.

Delays in government contracting: A tale of two metros

by Anirudh Burman and Pavithra Manivannan.

A state entity undertaking a procurement exercise must meet prescribed timelines throughout its procurement pipeline. Delays in one or more milestones adversely affect all parties involved: the procuring entity (increase in expenditure beyond the budget and disputes), the contracted vendors (uncertainty and delays in payment) and the public (delays in utilising public goods and services). At the outset, we recognise that the indicator of a successful procurement exercise are multi-fold: achieving required quality, adhering to timeline and limiting spending gap. Our approach employs the lack of delays as the indicator of a successful procurement exercise.

In a recent article, we examined the extent to which DMRC's (the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation) competence in timely project execution was borne out by data. We found that (a) DMRC is able to meet the Government of India's and its own stipulations in two stages of its procurement process, that is, contract award and vendor payments; and (b) In spite of this exemplary performance, DMRC has faced delays in overall project implementation that have gradually increased over time. This article seeks to understand the underlying factors that potentially contributed to DMRC's prompt performance in its procurement process.

It is not possible to understand DMRC's success in isolation. Instead, we analyse it relative to its predecessor, the Calcutta metro-rail system (Calcutta metro). The Calcutta metro was India's first metro-rail system to be implemented. It was plagued by delays and cost overruns. Such a comparative analysis of a successful public project to one that fared worse in execution is revealing. First, it shows the learning curve of the state in building capacity to execute public projects. Second, it helps to understand what works and what does not, when a state entity conducts a procurement exercise. The analysis can serve to provide valuable feedback in procurement reform policies.

Delays in execution of metro-rail systems

Formerly, the Ministry of Railways was responsible for the construction of mass rail services, including metro-rail systems in metropolitan cities. The Ministry undertook the construction of the Calcutta metro in 1971. In 1986, the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 was amended to shift the responsibility of the urban transport system to the Ministry of Urban Development (now the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs). In contrast to the Calcutta metro, the construction of the Delhi metro-rail system (Delhi metro) was undertaken by the Ministry of Urban Development as the nodal union ministry. The role of Railways was limited to providing technical assistance.

We study the annual reports of the Delhi metro and the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee Reports (1981; 1989; 1992) on the Calcutta metro, to estimate overall delays in both these projects. We source this data from the website of DMRC and the Parliament of India, respectively. Our data consists of six time periods during which there was significant procurement of works. The data includes the date of completion and submission of the detailed project report (DPR), the date on which the project received Union Cabinet approval, the date of commencement of works, the scheduled date of completion of the project, and the actual date of completion of the project, in part and full. These are presented in Table 1 below, as a timeline of events for the first line of the Calcutta metro and the first phase of the Delhi metro.

Table 1: Timeline of events

Event	Calcutta Metro Line-1	Delhi Metro Phase-1
Completion of Detailed Project Report (DPR)	1971	1995
Project sanction	1972	1996
Project commencement	1978	1997
Scheduled completion	1978	2005
Partial commission (one section)	1984	2002
Project completion (fully operational)	1995	2006

We find that the gap between estimated and actual date of completion is a little more than a year for the Delhi metro. This gap was close to two decades for the Calcutta metro. Further, the lag between the date of sanction of the project to the date of commencement of works for the project is wider for the Calcutta metro (4 years) than for the Delhi metro (about a year).

This suggests that, from 1971 to 1995, there appears to be much improvement in the way procurement was undertaken for Indian metro-rail systems. We posit that the Delhi metro's success was shaped by the challenges faced and the experiences gained in implementing the Calcutta metro. Our analysis attributes learnings from the Calcutta metro to the following structure and list of processes adopted by DMRC: its institutional design, its financing and revenue models, global transfer of technical know-how, and expertise of its early leadership. In the subsequent sections we analyse how each of these features enabled the Delhi metro to avoid inordinate delays.

The institutional design of the procuring entity

What motivated the institutional design of DMRC? To answer this we look at various Parliamentary Committee reports, CAG reports and literature on the subject. Our review suggests that there were three main institutional constraints faced by the Ministry of Railways in implementing the Calcutta metro.

1. The lack of coordination with the West Bengal State Government and the local agencies in Kolkata. There were delays in land acquisition, problems in utility diversions such as transport, water and sewage, and detection of uncharted utilities after commencement of works. These instances had a direct impact on the contracting process, such as frequent interruptions of works, revisions to scope of work, and change in construction methodology (Public Accounts Committee, 1981).
2. Frequent changes and vacancies within the Ministry of several important personnel such as the General Manager and Chief Engineer. This was due to the administrative process of the Ministry. The Railways had to follow the conditions laid down by the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet with respect to retirement, superannuation and promotion (Public Accounts Committee, 1981). This resulted in loss of experience and expertise within the procuring entity.
3. Inadequacy of financial powers delegated to the General Manager. From the year 1974 to 1982 the General Manager had the power to sanction tenders up to Rs. 1 crore only. This was increased to Rs. 2 crores in 1983 and Rs. 5 crores in 1985. This limited power of the General Manager meant, approvals for sanctions of higher value tenders had to be received from the Railway Board. This procedure was time consuming and caused delays in finalisation of contracts by up to 3 years (Public Accounts Committee, 1989).

We speculate that the above constraints prompted the authorities undertaking the Delhi metro project to adopt a different approach. The Calcutta experience provided two guides for the organisational structure of DMRC. One, to build institutional capabilities for executing a metro-rail system outside the Ministry of Railways. Second, to have a separate corporate entity with independent decision making authority. Thus, DMRC was set up with two distinguishing features which worked in its favour: It was formed as a limited liability company under the Companies Act, 1956 and the ownership of the entity vested equally in the Union and the State Government. The board of directors of DMRC constituted representatives from the Union Ministry of Urban Development, Department of Transport of GNCTD and the Delhi Development Authority. Such an institutional arrangement, by aligning incentives for all the stakeholders, enabled better coordination with the local government and ensured that the management had the backing of both the State and the Union Government. Further, functional directors appointed for distinct functions such as, project and planning, works, electrical, finance, business development and the like, had sufficient powers delegated to them under the Schedule of Powers (CAG, 2008). This facilitated quick decisions in expenditure approvals, qualification of bidders, finalisation and acceptance of contracts. Finally, the long tenure of key personnel such as the Managing Director, enabled the organisation to retain domain experience and expertise.

Financing and revenue models

For prompt execution and sustenance of any infrastructure project, timely flow of funds is essential. Metro-rail systems are capital-intensive projects. The Calcutta metro was fully funded by the Ministry of Railways. One of the main reported reasons for delay in the project was lack of funds and improper utilisation of allocated funds. Up until 1980, the Railways had not fully utilised the funds allocated for the project. Further, for subsequent years, sufficient funds were not made available for the construction. This resulted in shortage of raw materials, such as steel and signaling equipment, and delayed payments to vendors (Standing Committee on Railways, 1993; Public Accounts Committee, 1981). For the DMRC project, the Calcutta experience prompted the authorities to explore other avenues for funding such as, equity, external agency loans, subordinate loans from centre and state, property development revenue and central government grants. Most significant was the official development assistance (ODA) loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Nearly 54-55 per cent of the first three phases of the DMRC projects was funded by JICA as a low-interest and long-term concessional loan. The funding pattern for each phase of the project sourced from the DMRC website is as set out in Table 2. Smooth flow of funds into DMRC enabled timely payment to vendors and ensured that the project was not delayed due to uncertainty in financing.

Table 2: Funding pattern for DMRC projects

	Phase I	Phase II	Phase III
JICA loan	60%	54.47%	48.57%
Equity from GoI	14%	16.39%	10.04%
Equity from GNCTD	14%	16.39%	10.04%
Loans from Union/States	5%	6.56%	13.39%
Grants from States	-	0.59%	10.62%
Property Development	7%	5.59%	7.34%

Another lesson came from the fact that the Calcutta Metro was not financially viable (Singh, 2002). The traffic earnings were inadequate to cover the operating expenses of the metro-rail system. This not only burdened the exchequer in the form of subsidies but also affected the public as the fare per trip that was charged had to be increased to sustain operations (Public Accounts Committee, 1989). Decrease in cash flow meant stalling of procurement of raw materials, and delays in payments to vendors.

The financial crunch faced by Calcutta Metro encouraged DMRC to generate revenue through non-conventional sources. DMRC adopted the examples of well-performing international metro-rail systems and sought to increase its non-farebox revenue. Table 3 below shows the revenue model of DMRC for 10 years (FY2011-FY2020) obtained from its annual reports. Revenue from traffic operations is categorised as fare-box revenue and revenue from real estate, consultancy and external projects are categorised as non fare-box revenue.

Table 3: DMRC Revenue Model (as percentage of total revenue)

Description	Fare revenue	Non fare revenue
FY20	65.49	34.51
FY19	62.92	37.08
FY18	55.22	44.78
FY17	45.69	54.31
FY16	53.35	46.65
FY15	60.34	39.66
FY14	55.74	44.26
FY13	62.93	37.07
FY12	65.74	34.26
FY11	65.05	34.95

On an average 58.49% of DMRC's revenue is from traffic operations (fare-box revenue) and 41.51% of the revenue is through other sources (non-fare box revenue). This is in line with international practice. For instance, the non-farebox revenue of some of the better performing metros in the world (in terms of ridership and network length), such as London, Singapore and Hong Kong, ranges from 25-60% of its total revenue. DMRC's capacity to source funds and remain financially viable has helped it to make timely payments to its contractors, repay its debts, and expand its network line.

Human capacity and technical know-how

Building human competence within the government is paramount to do procurement well. This includes both functional as well as technical competence. In India, the technical know-how to build metro-rail systems was lacking. The Calcutta metro was the first ever underground railway project undertaken in India. Despite this, global tenders were not invited for construction of the work. Neither the construction firms in the country nor the Railway Administration possessed the experience to construct underground structures for a rapid transit system. The lack of expertise led to frequent abandonment of works and changes in scope of work, resulting in huge financial implications in addition to time overruns (Public Accounts Committee 1989 and 1992). Thus, when the idea of a metro-rail system in Delhi was born, the need to rope in personnel with prior expertise and experience, such as, B.I. Singal and E. Sreedharan, was recognised.

Mr. B.I. Singal was the former Director General of the Institute of Urban Transport and the then Managing Director of RITES (Rail India Technical and Economic Service). Mr. Singal came in with 11 years of experience in the planning and building of some of the finest metro-rail systems in the world, such as the Hong Kong MTR (known for completing the project within time and budget) and Taipei metro-rail network. RITES prepared the feasibility study on building a metro-rail system for Delhi. Mr. Singal made sure that his RITES team had a few professionals who had previous experience of working with the Calcutta metro. Mr. E. Sreedharan, the first Managing Director of DMRC, had served as the Chairman and Managing Director of Konkan Railways. He brought in his domain experience of working with the Railways as well as the management experience of heading an autonomous entity. Studies document some effective practices adopted by Singal and Sreedharan which we speculate had an impact on the organisation's procurement practices. They insisted on independence in decision making, speed, and global exchange of knowledge and expertise (Ashokan, 2015; CPI, 2017). This resulted in creation of DMRC as a separate legal entity and in transfer of Japanese technology and know-how in building metro-rail systems.

After the failed attempt at indigenisation by the Calcutta metro, the authorities felt the need to tap in to global expertise for the Delhi metro project. In addition to funding from JICA, Japanese Consultants were also brought on board. This ensured transfer of foreign technological knowledge, skills and expertise to DMRC. DMRC engineers developed technical skills such as tunneling technologies, and functional skills such as management ethos, and value for time from their Japanese counterparts (Onishi, 2016). This enabled DMRC to build in-house capacity, which now helps other metro-rail networks in the country.

Discussion

Our work shows how the Indian state attempts to achieve better outcomes by identifying lessons from its past shortcomings. The challenges faced by the Calcutta metro shaped the Delhi metro's institutional design, financial structure, and human resource competence. Our article highlights the importance of these three factors in enabling desirable procurement outcomes.

A key insight from our analysis is that these factors do not work in isolation. Autonomy in decision making, efficient and experienced personnel, adequate financing, and right institutional choice are all inter-operable and go hand in hand. If a procuring entity seeks to realise better outcomes, procurement reforms must not merely pick the lowest hanging fruit of these factors. Instead, a sector-specific approach of studying the past experiences must be employed to act as feedback into future projects. Our research provides a framework to assess such past successes and failures, and demonstrates the potential of deploying such research.

References

Public Accounts Committee, Fifty-fifth Report, 1981, Hundred and Forty-second Report, 1989 and Ninth Report, 1991.

Standing Committee on Railways, Second Report, 1993 and Thirty-fourth Report, 2007.

Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Report No. Performance Audit 17, 2008.

Pavithra Manivannan, Lessons from the Delhi Metro, Business Standard, July 2021.

Anirudh Burman and Pavithra Manivannan, Timeliness in government contracting: Evidence from the country's largest metro-rail network, The Leap Blog, August 2022.

Yumiko Onishi, Breaking Ground: A Narrative on the making of Delhi Metro, JICA, 2016.

Centre for Public Impact, The Construction of the Delhi Metro, November 2017.

Saurabh Singhal, Non Farebox Revenue for Metro - A Global Perspective, Business World, May 2022.

The International Association of Public Transport (UITP), World Metro Figures, 2018.

M.S. Ashokan, Karmayogi - A biography of E. Sreedharan, Penguin, 2015.

Anirudh Burman is an Associate Research Director and Fellow at Carnegie India. Pavithra Manivannan is a Senior Research Associate at XKDR Forum and Chennai Mathematical Institute.

Timeliness in government contracting: Evidence from the country's largest metro-rail network

by Anirudh Burman and Pavithra Manivannan.

Introduction

Infrastructure projects in India are plagued by delays (MOSPI, 2022). Proposed explanations include failures of government contracting for public procurement (Singh, 2010, Sinha and Vatsa, 2021, etc.). In this article, we measure delays in the procurement process of the largest metro-rail network in the country -- the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) -- which is considered a successful project. It fares well on global ranks on some parameters such as network length and ridership. The early phases of this metro rail project have been lauded for timeliness in execution and contract payments (Expenditure Management Commission, 2016).

We look at two distinct datasets to obtain a birds eye view and a procurement-oriented view of the delays in DMRC. We find that DMRC is prompt in stages of the contracting processes for which we are able to find evidence, but that the overall project implementation suffers from time overruns. We put this knowledge together to obtain insights into government contracting.

Our approach

As with contracts drawn between any two counterparties, government contracting is a pipeline that runs through four phases (Mehta and Thomas, 2022): (I) Contract specification and design, (II) Contract tendering and award, (III) Contract management and (IV) Contract closure. Flaws in government contracting shows up as inefficiencies in public procurement such as delays in infrastructure projects, which in turn, results in cost overruns, loss in revenues, vendor dissatisfaction and lack of competition when government wants to procure, and ultimately, deprives the public of the intended benefits.

We use three data-sets to understand the timeliness of government contracting in DMRC projects.

1. A data-set of the time taken by the various DMRC projects, sourced from the CapEx database published by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
2. A data-set of tenders awarded by DMRC, hand-constructed from the 'Contracts Awarded' section of the DMRC website;
3. A data-set of payments made by DMRC, hand-constructed from the 'Vendor Payment Details' section of the DMRC website and from an RTI application.

The first data is sourced from the CMIE CapEx database. The CapEx database records the date of significant events for each project. We collect data for the three operational metro networks constructed by DMRC, that is, Phase 1, 2 and 3. This data-set consists of project level information such as, the date of announcement of the project, initial completion date, actual completion date and time overruns.

The second dataset is a hand-constructed data-set consists of tender level information for awarded contracts of DMRC, such as the department calling for tenders, nature of work, date of publication of Notice Inviting Tender (NIT), date of issue of letter of acceptance and value of the contract. This data-set covers this information for 892 tenders for a period of 5 years (2016-2020). DMRC categorises these tenders into 7 heads: Civil and Architecture Works, Electrical Works, Operations and Maintenance, Rolling Stock, Track Works, Signalling and Telecom and Property Development.

In addition, we categorise the contracts for IT services and housekeeping works as 'Miscellaneous' and the procurement done by DMRC for other metros in the country as 'For Other Metros'. The highest number of contracts were awarded for Operation and Maintenance works (623) and the least for Rolling Stock (2). Table 1 shows the typology of procurement undertaken by DMRC during our study period.

Table 1: Typology of DMRC Procurement

Category	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	Total
Civil and Architecture Works	17	28	9	15	9	78
Electrical Works	5	1	3	5	13	27
Operations and Maintenance	0	65	167	200	191	623
Rolling Stock	0	0	0	2	0	2
Track Works	12	2	0	1	3	18
Signalling and Telecom	8	1	0	0	3	12
Property Development	0	5	3	10	5	23
Miscellaneous	4	14	23	8	13	62
For other metros	5	7	17	8	10	47

Our second hand-constructed data-set consists of monthly bill payment status of DMRC. Pursuant to government communication (vide D.O.18(18)/IFD/2019 dated 05.11.2019), DMRC uploads its monthly vendor payment details on its website since December 2019. This data gives us periodic information about the bill submission date and the bill payment date of DMRC vendors. Since the website does not archive its data we obtained our data partly from the DMRC website and partly vide an RTI application made for this purpose. Our data-set consists of 20,654 bills for the period between November 2019 to August 2021. The payment period is unknown for about 1,550 bills in our data-set, which we discard in our analysis.

We restrict our study to benchmark DMRC's performance against the timelines prescribed by its internal guidelines (DMRC Procurement Manual, 2016 and General Conditions of Contract, 2019) and the Central Government procurement guidelines (General Financial Rules, 2017 and the Manual for Procurement of Works, 2019). We do not employ a comparative analysis with other procuring entities for two reasons: One, availability of data in government portals such as the CPPP (Central Public Procurement Portal) and websites of the procuring entities are often sparse and sporadic. Second, a deeper understanding of the fundamental functioning, internal rules, processes and organisational structure of each entity is required for a meaningful comparison and it warrants a separate study.

Findings: Time overrun in DMRC project implementation

In the CapEx data, we are able to see that, between 1995 to 2021, there were three projects announced, implemented and completed by DMRC. These are the Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 lines. These have been operational from 2006, 2011 and 2021 respectively. From this data, we are able to locate various timelines for all three phases, including the date on which the Phase was announced, to the date on which they were completed and commissioned for public use for fully operational metro lines. We calculate the time overruns as the difference between the date projected initially as the completion date for a Phase and the date on which it was actually completed and operationalised. These are presented as project delays in Table 2.

Table 2: Project delays (in months)

Phase 1	15
Phase 2	32
Phase 3	102
Source: CMIE Capex Database

Findings: Timeliness in contract award by DMRC

High-income countries, countries with greater political accountability, and countries with greater economic freedom process public works procurement in a more timely manner (Djankov and Bosio, 2020). Each of these countries does infrastructure procurement following its own regulations to award contracts. In India, works procurement is guided by the Manual for Procurement of Works, 2019. According to Clause 5.6 in this manual, the time taken by Ministries and Departments from the date of opening the tender to the date of awarding of contract is 90 days.

We estimate the actual time taken by DMRC to award tenders (Table 3). This is calculated as the time taken from the date of opening of the tender to the date of issuing of the acceptance letter. We find that, on an average, DMRC takes 91-92 days to complete the tendering process.

Table 3: Time taken to award tenders (in days)

Year	No. of tenders	Average time taken
2016	51	101
2017	123	98
2018	222	103
2019	249	81
2020	247	89
Average	178	92

Findings: Timeliness in making vendor payments by DMRC

Payment delays are endemic in public contracts in India. DMRC has sought to avoid payment delays by including provisions for both interim and final payments within its Procurement Manual and General Conditions of Contract, 2019 (GCC). Depending on the type of contract, payments may be made at different stages of the procurement cycle. At Clause 11, the GCC provides for set timelines for the scrutiny of invoices and payments to be made by the procuring entity:

• Interim payments: A contracting firm may apply to the respective project engineer of DMRC requesting for an 'interim payment certificate'. This certificate will be issued based on achieved milestones or prescribed payment schedule in the contract, if any.
1. Within 21 days of the request, the project engineer must issue the interim payment certificate specifying the amount due to the contractor.
2. DMRC is mandated to make 80% of the certified payment amount within 7 days of issue of the certificate.
3. The balance 20% is to be made within 28 days of issue of the certificate.
• Final payments: Once the project engineer certifies that the contractor has completed all his obligations related to a particular work, the contractor is entitled to apply for a 'final payment certificate' with the required supporting documents.
1. Within 28 days of receiving this request, the project engineer must issue the final payment certificate stating the final amount due.
2. DMRC is mandated to pay the amount certified in the final payment certificate within 56 days of issue of this certificate.

We look at the vendor payments data-set of DMRC to analyse the adherence to these timelines. We find that, on an average, DMRC takes about 4 days to clear its dues from the date of submission of the bill by the vendors (Table 4). For the data-set in our study, the maximum days taken by DMRC to make its payment is about a year.

Table 4: Time period for clearance of dues (in days)

Year	No. of bills	Average time	Median time	Minimum time
2019	1326	5	2	0
2020	9887	4	3	0
2021	7891	4	4	0
Total	19104	4	3	0

Payment delays by public sector enterprises in India to their vendors far exceeds their procurement values (Manivannan and Zaveri, 2021). We find that DMRC is an outlier in terms of maintaining payment discipline to its vendors, and in adhering to the timelines provided in its GCC.

Discussion

The public discourse on government infrastructure procurement focuses on delays and time overruns being an indicator of poor government contracting. In this article, we have analysed the capability of a procurement-intensive public sector enterprise to keep up with its timelines in two stages, that is, in contract award and payments. We find that DMRC takes about 3 months to award a contract, and about 4 days to clear its payment dues to vendors. Regardless of this exemplary performance on awarding contracts and paying vendor dues, we also find that the overall project implementation by DMRC failed to meet scheduled timelines to complete. All three phases took a longer time than originally expected. In fact, we observe that the overall project time delays increased from the Phase 1 project to the Phase 3 project.

Executing infrastructure projects on time has been a continuous concern and challenge in India. Our analysis about DMRC timeliness in awarding contracts and in making payments provides evidence against the popular perception that public projects are delayed due to delays in decision-making by the public authorities and their inability to make timely payments. Instead, we speculate that these are because of other factors for overall project delays, some of which could be misaligned allocation of scope and risk in procurement contracts and poor contract management. A deeper analysis into each project, procurement practises, financial and institutional structure of DMRC may help in understanding the reasons for its timely performance in certain procurement processes and the potential causes of time overruns. These learnings can then be adopted by other procuring entities to achieve better procurement and project outcomes.

References

Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation Infrastructure and Project Monitoring Division, 434th Flash Report on Central Sector Projects, January 2022.

Ram Singh, Delays and Cost Overruns in Infrastructure Projects: Extent, Causes and Remedies, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 45, No. 21, May 2010.

PC Sinha and Ananys Vatsa, Delays in Project Completion in India, Indian Journal of Projects, Infrastructure and Energy Law, January 2021.

Erica Bosio and Simeon Djankov, Timely procurement of public works, World Bank Blogs, February 2020.

Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, General Instructions on Procurement and Project Management, October 2021.

Expenditure Management Commission, Recommendations of the Expenditure Management Commission, December 2015.

Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, Manual for Procurement of Works, 2019.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd., General Conditions of Contract, November 2019.

Pavithra Manivannan and Bhargavi Zaveri, How large is the payment delays problem in Indian public procurement?, The Leap Blog, March 2021.

Charmi Mehta and Susan Thomas, Identifying roadblocks in highway contracting: lessons from NHAI litigation , The Leap Blog, July 2022.

Charmi Mehta and Diya Uday, How competitive is bidding in infrastructure public procurement? A study of road and water projects in five Indian states , The Leap Blog, March 2022.

Anirudh Burman is an Associate Research Director and Fellow at Carnegie India. Pavithra Manivannan is a Senior Research Associate at XKDR Forum and Chennai Mathematical Institute. We thank Susan Thomas for valuable comments and discussions.

Identifying roadblocks in highway contracting: lessons from NHAI litigation

by Charmi Mehta and Susan Thomas.

Introduction

Government contracting is an important foundational process which shapes state capacity. Under Indian conditions, there is limited state capacity in government contracting, which leads to a significant rate of contracting failure. One manifestation of contracting failure is litigation. Defects in the contracting process are often associated with litigation. In addition, litigation leads to delays in project completion, and the prospect of litigation deters some private firms from working with government thus hampering competitiveness in government contracting (Mehta and Uday, 2022). The study of litigation is, therefore, a pathway to creating knowledge in the field of government contracting. An example this was Damle et al, 2021.

In the `contract life cycle approach', government contracting is a pipeline that runs through four phases: I - Contract design, II - Contract award, III - Contract management and IV - Contract closure. We must measure the incidence of defects across the four phases, so as to prioritise resourcing, in the field of policy research, and in the activity of government contracting.

In this article, we construct a novel data-set about contract related litigation at the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which is the single agency that does the largest number of government contracts. Using this data-set, we measure the share of each of the phases of the procurement life-cycle in litigation. In our knowledge, this constitutes the first empirical evidence about the role of the phases of the government contracting life cycle in inducing litigation.

Methodology

We hand-construct a data-set which draws upon information from three sources.

Delhi High Court case orders

NHAI contracts and concession agreements give the Delhi High Court exclusive jurisdiction over its contractual disputes from anywhere in India. We find 1165 cases in 2007-2020 that emanate from NHAI contracts. For each case, we observe the date of initiation and disposal, and the names of parties involved.

Extracting facts from court documents

We read 635 out of the 1165 (65 percent) court documents. Using these, we extracted the cause of dispute whenever it was available. These were found to be one of the following: Interim relief, Appointment of arbitrator, Challenging arbitration award, Seeking extension of time, Seeking award enforcement, Restraining NHAI, Reimbursement of costs/Compensation, Challenging claims demanded.

The NHAI Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP)

While filing for the NHAI Infrastructure Investment Trust listing with SEBI, MoRTH was mandated to disclose all large-value disputes involving the NHAI (that are in arbitration), along with a list of all outstanding claims. This had 40 disputes listed, with information about the dates of initiation, cause of disputes, the model of contracting used for the project under dispute, and the names of parties involved. As a self-disclosed data source, this served as a tool to validate observations from the Delhi High Court case orders data.

We find that NHAI accounts for almost 40% of the cases that the Union Government is party to (1165 out of the Union Government's 2912). We also find that cases involving the NHAI have grown at a rate of 17.15% on average during this period. NHAI is the petitioner for about 45% of the cases, while the corresponding figure for other government agencies is about 30%.

NHAI is such a large scale litigant, that reducing the litigation intensity at NHAI would make a different to the working of the judiciary. This work is thus relevant not just for the field of government contracting, but also for the field of the judiciary.

We develop a two-step process for classifying NHAI contract related litigation orders into the four phases of the government contracting life cycle. In the first step, we categorise cases based on causes of dispute as follows:

1. Related to arbitration proceedings: One set of cases pertain to petitions that (1) seek interim relief from the court under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996, (2) seek the court's intervention in selection of the arbitrator (on account of delays or disagreement in appointment), and (3) appeal awards announced by the arbitral tribunal, which accounted for a significant fraction of the arbitration related matters.
2. Payments related: This could be about payments, revision of payment terms, price estimation due to changes in scope/ additional components midway into the construction phase or changes in law or policy leading to adverse conditions of work for the private party. Changes in terms of the contract result in parties disagreeing over revised cost estimates or the method of calculating these revisions. In several cases, the delays were related to reimbursements to the private party on account of delays in land acquisition, or operationalising toll plazas. In some cases, the private firm sought restraining orders from the court against the NHAI invoking bank guarantees when there was a delay in the firm achieving financial closure.
3. Related to wrongful termination/debarment of contractors: Concession agreements embed the terms of contract termination. Prior to the 2020 amendment in the model concession agreement (which allowed a mutual exit clause), the contract perceived termination as default by either side, with the opposite party having a right to compensation and damages. In the process, NHAI often debarred/black-listed contractors from bidding for tenders, a decision that contractors appeal in court.
4. Reason unclear: For 253 cases, we were unable to classify the cause of dispute since the order was unclear for interpretation. This may reflect blemishes in the Delhi High Court website. We are conservative and classify a case under `Reason unclear' when we are not confident about placing it into the other three categories.

We go on to classify cases into the four phases of the life-cycle of a contract. This mapping is sensitive to the domain; our classification processes are specific to government contracting in highways and infrastructure.

In all the cases that we studied, there was none in the first phase (the "Contract design" phase).

Litigation associated with defects in the pre-award phase involves disputes on the tendering/awarding processes. For example, this includes disputes regarding unfairly awarded tenders, wrongly classifying bids as non-responsive and irregular financial bid-opening processes, all of which are placed within the pre-award phase.

Reading the orders shows that arbitration-related and payments-related causes of disputes take place once the contract has been awarded. This is also true for some of the cases that are classified as wrongful debarment/termination which arises because of the non-performance of contractual obligations. Since these disputes arise after the contract is awarded, we classify these cases in the post-award phase. Some of the orders contain details about the type of contract between the parties. For example, SPVs are often formed for the construction of a highway, and are named '... Tollway Pvt. Ltd.' which indicates a legal entity that was formed for the purposes of executing a contract or an award. This can be identified from the names of the parties, even if the specific causes of dispute might be unclear in some cases. We use this information in classifying cases under the post-award category.

Traditionally, cases pertaining to payment delays are categorised within the post-completion phase. But in the case of NHAI contracts, payment schedules vary across the commonly used models of Hybrid Annuity (HAM), BOT-Annuity models and EPC. Payments are made to the concessionaire either at the start of construction, or at regular frequencies such as semi-annually, with payments usually linked to the achievement of project milestones. We place such cases in the post-award phase rather than in the post-completion phase. Similarly, case orders that seek to resolve arbitration-proceedings related disputes are also categorised as post-award since these disputes arise from a contractual relationship between two parties to approach alternate dispute resolution mechanisms, which can only exist in the event of a contract being awarded.

Findings

Table 1: Number of cases by drivers of litigation

Cause of dispute	NHAI as petitioner	Firm as petitioner	Total
Arbitration proceedings related	123	137	260
Payments related	15	75	90
Wrongful termination/ debarment	1	31	32
Total	139	243	382

In Table 1, we summarise the number of cases falling under Categories 1-3 listed above. We further break up the cases under each category as the number of cases where NHAI was the petitioner and where the private firm was the petitioner. A large volume of cases are a) arbitration-proceedings related, and 2) payments-related (delayed payments). We see that arbitration related matters are nearly 70 percent of the sample of case orders. In this category, both the NHAI and the firm are almost equally likely to petition an arbitration matter. In the other two categories, NHAI is more likely to be litigated against.

The analysis based on case classification into phases of the contract life-cycle is presented in Table 2. This shows the number of disputes which we classify as falling within the pre-award, post-award, and post-completion phase. In this table, we present both the actual number of cases identified in a given phase, as well as the share of the cases as a fraction of the total.

Table 2: Share of disputes by the phase of the contract life-cycle

Phase of the contract life-cycle	Share (% of Total)	Number of cases
Pre-award	1.75	11
Post-award	66.14	420
Post-completion	0.15	1
Unclear/No data recorded	31.95	203
Total	100.00	635

Table 2 shows that over 65% of the cases are concentrated in the post-award or the contract management phase.

Discussion

In this article, we have analysed one important government contracting organisation, and attributed its litigation into the four phases of the contract life cycle. The results diverge from the commonly held view that the problems in public procurement arise because of problems with Phase 2 or L1 tendering. This analysis suggests that the hot spot in litigation is Phase 3 or the Contract management phase. This suggests that policy researchers and policy practitioners should allocate greater resources on strengthening this phase.

Another finding is that there is a large volume of arbitration-proceedings related disputes, which indicates the limitations of alternate dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms. Strengthening ADR mechanisms in India would result in less litigation.

Recent reforms of the government contracting process have initiated movement on this front. The General Instructions on Procurement and Project Management (2021) built provisions to address concerns around arbitration and dispute resolution. It acknowledges that the majority of the cases appealed by government agencies end up being awarded in favour of the opposite party. In this context, the General Instructions emphasize the need for the government to actively take steps to minimise litigation. Further, it inserts Rule 227A in the General Financial Rules (GFRs) 2017 for Arbitration Awards, which mandates that the concerned ministry pay 75% of the amount of the arbitral award against the bank guarantee, even if it contests the award in a court of law. This is a step in the right direction as it takes away the incentive for either party to benefit from prolonging a dispute or appealing to a higher authority to delay payment of claims awarded by the arbitral tribunal.

References:

Damle D., Gulati K., Sharma A., and Zaveri-Shah, B. Litigation in public contracts: some estimates from court data., The LEAP Blog, May 2021.

Mehta C., and Uday D., How competitive is bidding in infrastructure public procurement? A study of road and water projects in five Indian states, The LEAP Blog, March 2022.

Charmi Mehta is a researcher at XKDR-Chennai Mathematical Institute and Susan Thomas is professor at the Jindal School of Business and a researcher at XKDR Forum. The authors thank Shailesh Pathak and Bhargavi Zaveri-Shah for their inputs in shaping the study, and Yajat Bansal and Diya Mal for their research assistance in this study.

Threats to legal certainty in government contracting by electricity distribution companies

by Akshay Jaitly and Ajay Shah.

A battle in Andhra Pradesh, 2018-2022

In September 2018, electricity distribution companies in Andhra Pradesh (Discoms) filed a petition before the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) to reduce the feed-in tariff for wind power projects (that had been determined under Section 62 of the Electricity Act, where the regulator sets the price). Another petition was filed requesting APERC to revise the tariff payable by Discoms under solar power PPAs (this time discovered under Section 63 of the Electricity Act, where there is a competitive bidding process). The argument made by Discoms was that the tariff discovered in other states pursuant to competitive bidding was lower than the tariffs statutorily determined in Andhra Pradesh. There are also newspaper reports about the state load dispatch centre (SLDC) curtailing output by renewables generators, ostensibly in the interests of grid safety.

These attempts at reneging on contracts, by the state, go against basic notions of sanctity of contracting and legal certainty. When X contracts with Y, both are bound by and obliged to fulfil the terms of the contract, regardless of future fluctuations of prices and technology. The Indian Contract Act, 1872, and a line of case law under it, gives no space for either X or Y, as private persons, to renege on a contract because better prices had come about somewhere else in the economy.

It is also settled law that when the state enters into a contract, it does so in a commercial capacity and not as the sovereign. If the Indian state purports to renege on contracts in this fashion, it deepens the problems of the state as an untrusted counterparty, and fewer private persons will be willing to do business with the state in the future. This would harm the prices at which the state is able to enter into contracts.

As an example, consider a Jan 2022 story by Kailash Babar in the Economic Times, about NHAI terminating a contract with IL&FS which had been established in 2013. NHAI did not just walk away: it paid IL&FS Rs.891 crore for the privilege of terminating the contract. Concessions typically have a formula for termination compensation in three scenarios – authority default, no fault and concessionaire default. These are expressed as percentages of debt due plus some equity return and some other terms.

Attempts at reneging on PPAs elsewhere in India

This experience from Andhra Pradesh is actually not unique. Discoms and regulators in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu have subsequently attempted unilateral termination or renegotiation of renewable energy tariffs under validly executed PPAs.

Punjab took this one step further in November last year, by introducing and unanimously passing legislation to get out of its PPA obligations. A few months ago, we wrote about the Punjab Renewable Energy Security, Reform, Termination and Re-Determination of Power Tariff Bill passed in the Punjab Legislative Assembly. This law seeks to renege on PPAs that the Punjab state Discom had voluntarily entered into, on the basis that these created too heavy a financial burden on the state. This attempt by the state, to have immunity from contract performance, is under legal challenge.

A seminal skirmish took place a while ago, in Gujarat in 2013, where the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity had held with reference to the actions of a Discom in Gujarat, that a PPA could only be reopened for "giving thrust to renewable energy projects and not for curtailing the incentives". In other words, PPAs could not be reopened to reduce tariffs. In this case, Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) had filed a petition before the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission (GERC) in 2013, asking for a revision in solar tariffs determined by the commission in its 2010 order on the grounds of reduced customs and excise duties, which would justify a downward revision of the tariffs. The GERC dismissed GUVNL’s petition and its decision was upheld by the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) on appeal. APTEL held that since GUVNL had not established that there is a legal right available to it to seek a redetermination of the tariff by reopening the PPA, the GERC would not be expected to revisit the generic tariff ‘to dis-incentivise the project developers and consequently discourage future investment in the sector’.

How the Andhra Pradesh story played out

Despite this, solar and wind power developers challenged this in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. A single judge bench of the High Court dismissed the Discoms' petitions in September 2019, with a direction to APERC to decide the issues raised by the developers.

But the High Court directed the Discoms to pay an interim tariff (lower than the tariffs under the PPAs) until APERC adjudicated the matter. The legal foundations through which the court chose to go against contract law are not clear. This created tremendous commercial difficulties in the industry. In some instances, there are reports that even this lower interim tariff was not being paid by the Discoms, causing further distress to power generators.

The typical renewables project is a tight arrangement of capital and PPA, with little room for contracting wobbles. Once the predictability of cash flows was disrupted, some of the generating assets were classified as 'non-performing'. The generators tried to go to court to force lenders to not do so.

This problem then showed up at a Division Bench at the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The case played out over three years. The Division Bench held that:

1. The tariff under concluded PPAs cannot be re-negotiated;
2. Financial difficulty of Discoms is not a ground to permit non-performance of the PPAs or to reduce the tariff set out under the PPAs;
3. A tariff determined through competitive bidding process under Section 63 of the Electricity Act cannot be re-determined; and
4. Since renewable energy plants operate on a ‘must-run basis’, any arbitrary curtailment of power by the state load despatch centre without notice and not based on grid security or safety reasons is illegal.

This was a salutory reaffirmation of the foundations of commercial law: Contracts must be honoured, statutory processes cannot be unilaterally set aside, power validly contracted under a PPA can only be curtailed for technical reasons. At the same time, in a well functioning market economy, these events from 2018 to 2022 -- and the associated commercial consequences for private persons -- should have never taken place. Every investor looks at this fracas and chooses a somewhat higher risk premium for doing business in India.

Implications for the Indian legal system

It is important to analyse what shapes these attempts at state immunity from contract law. In what ways can laws be amended, or principles be evolved, so that such attempts are eliminated or at least minimised?

Perhaps the Andhra Pradesh Discoms will appeal to the Supreme Court of India in this matter; perhaps the challenge to the Punjab PPA law will find its way to the Supreme Court. It is then interesting to envision: What is the Supreme Court order that can usefully underline the foundations of the extant contract law, and thus reduce the incentives to embark on such manoeuvres?

While a Supreme Court order in this regard might act as a deterrent in the future, the problem lies in the culture of government institutions, who are conditioned to exhaust all available means of reducing costs, irrespective of the merits of their position and the chances of success, out of fear of vigilance authorities. A solution would be for the government to develop guidelines and instructions setting out the bases on which appeals should be pursued or not.

In developing such guidelines, some of the questions for the state to consider would be as follows: Suppose the probability of success of such attempts at renegotiating are 0. Is it still efficient for a state government to initiate it? As Karan Gulati and Shubho Roy emphasise in a forthcoming paper, could it be that the time value of money that is used in Indian court orders make it efficient for the state government to embark on litigation that it has no possibility of winning? We need to also analyse the Indian justice system from this point of view, and identify the reforms through which the incentive of a state government is reshaped.

Implications for electricity policy

As we have argued before, the Indian electricity sector has suffered from difficulties for a long time, but the recent years represent an escalation of stress to a different level. This comes from the combination of low price renewables, volatility in fuel costs, the impact of ESG investors abroad upon electricity purchase by large Indian firms, and the accelerating exit of commercial and industrial buyers from discoms.

It is sometimes comforting to think that discoms in India have always had problems. But the problems seen today are worse. Faced with extreme stress, there is an appetite for extreme measures. When the policy process is weak, there is a greater likelihood of poorly designed policy measures being adopted, such as attempts at reneging on contracts. When even a few discoms engage in such behaviour, this reduces the investability of the Indian electricity sector in areas that have connections with the Indian state.

We should see each of these eruptions as illustrations of the underlying stress, and reorient ourselves towards the required fundamental electricity reform.

We thank Charmi Mehta for research assistance on this article.