Why the Optimism?
The preparations for the Commonwealth Games have been a complete and utter disaster. Footbridges and false ceilings collapsed even before the games had started. A budget overshoot by a factor of 30 times; you can imagine the scale of corruption. On the other hand, there’s the Goldman Sachs prediction about India becoming the world’s 3 rd largest economy by 2050. How exactly do we manage to be so corrupt, so incompetent and so behind schedule on so many fronts and yet seem to be racing ahead overall? Despite the corruption and inefficiencies that are so obvious, why are so many (foreigners and Indians alike) still confident about India’s growth prospects? Part of the answer seems to be the faith in the private sector. Not just in getting the work done but increasingly even in funding it! Take infrastructure funding, for example. Around 50% of every incremental rupee in Indian infrastructure is being funded by the private sector. Case in point: IDFC just launched an infrastructur...