The recent announcement by the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Union Ministry of Finance, regarding the creation of a three-year Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Project Pipeline involving 852 projects with a staggering capital outlay of over Rs 17 trillion for the period 2025-26 to 2027-28 is not merely a strategy for ‘infrastructure development.’ It is a calculated manoeuvre to facilitate the expropriation of public wealth and the primitive accumulation of capital by domestic and foreign monopolies at the expense of the working class and the national exchequer. This pipeline represents a wholesale surrender of national assets and the commanding heights of the Indian economy to the parasitic capitalist class through a process of legalised expropriation of the commons. This Rs 17 trillion roadmap is a classic manifestation of the state acting as the ‘executive committee’ of the ruling capitalist class, intervening to solve the crisis of over-accumulation by creating risk-free profit avenues for idle private capital. By earmarking 108 projects in roads and highways worth Rs 8.77 trillion, 46 projects in power and energy totaling Rs 3.40 trillion, 22 projects in ports and shipping at Rs 37,644 crore, and 13 critical railway projects at Rs 30,904 crore, the government is effectively converting public wealth created by the sweat and toil of generations of Indian workers into a rent-seeking machine for private monopolies.

The Political Economy of Legalised Expropriation

To understand this pipeline, we must move beyond the euphemisms of efficiency and resource mobilisation. This is a process of primitive accumulation and the conversion of public utilities into absolute rent extraction. By earmarking 108 projects in Roads and Highways (worth RS 8.77 trillion), 46 in Power and Energy (Rs 3.40 trillion), 22 in Ports (Rs 37,644 crore), and 13 in Railways (Rs 30,904 crore), the government is effectively handing over the commanding heights of the economy to domestic and foreign monopolies.

This is not partnership; it is a parasitism where the state provides the bone and sinew of the project while private capital sucks the marrow of the surplus. The fundamental deception of the PPP model lies in the socialisation of risks and the privatisation of profits. While the state claims to bridge the infrastructure gap without increasing public debt, the reality is that the public pays twice: first through tax-funded Viability Gap Funding (VGF) and hidden subsidies, and second through the imposition of exorbitant user charges, tolls, and tariffs. These user fees are nothing but a tax on existence, turning basic mobility and electricity into commodities for profit maximisation.

The Hybrid Trap: Greenfield Dispossession and Brownfield Looting

The pipeline's sophistication lies in its hybrid use of greenfield and brownfield projects, each serving a specific function in the architecture of corporate loot and the dispossession of the masses. Greenfield projects (new developments) act as the engines of modern-day enclosures where the state uses its coercive machinery police, bureaucracy, and eminent domain to displace the peasantry and the urban poor from their land. Once the clearance is achieved using public power, the land is handed over to private monopolies. In this pipeline, specific greenfield targets include the Rameshwar-Paradip Coastal Highway, a massive project divided into packages (such as Package-I worth Rs 4,961.60 crore) designed to seize the coastal commons under the Hybrid Annuity Model. Similarly, the development of new logistics and industrial parks, including food grain silos in Kaimur and Buxar, Bihar, and bio-CNG plants in Bhubaneswar, sees the state clearing land only for private entities to own and operate the infrastructure. The creation of Multi-Modal Logistics Parks further involves converting vast tracts of agricultural land into hubs for private transport giants, where the cost of displacement is borne by the marginalised while the future value of the land is captured by capital.

In contrast, brownfield projects represent the monetisation of the labour of past generations. These are existing assets, highways already built, ports already operational, and rail hubs already functioning, constructed with the sweat and taxes of the Indian people, now being handed over for legalised theft. Private capital enters at the harvest stage, extracting rent with zero construction risk, marking a direct transfer of wealth from the collective past of the nation to the private future of the billionaire class. Notable brownfield dispossessions in the pipeline include railway station redevelopments, such as the Vijayawada Railway Station (Rs 946 crore) and the New Delhi Railway Station, where prime urban land and existing rail hubs are handed over to private conglomerates for a 30-year monetisation. Highway widening and O&M (Operations & Maintenance) projects, like the Khagaria–Purnea section of NH-31 (Bihar) on a Build-Operate-Transfer (Toll) basis, see roads that already serve the public converted into private toll-booths for decades. Port and jetty modernisation, such as the handing over of operational berths at Mormugao Port, allows private operators to collect fees on trade that the public exchequer has already facilitated.

The VGF: Capital Subsidy Disguised as Public Interest

The government’s reliance on Viability Gap Funding (VGF), providing up to 40% of the Total Project Cost (TPC) as a direct grant, is a blatant misuse of tax revenue. The DEA’s framework ensures that even if a project is commercially unviable, meaning the market itself finds it unworthy of investment, the public will step in to make it profitable for the private player.

This is capital subsidy in its purest form. If the project fails, the government’s 40% is sunk; if it succeeds, the private entity keeps 100% of the operational surplus. By using public funds to de-risk private investment, the Ministry of Finance is effectively guaranteeing a return on investment for corporations while the public bears the downside. This framework removes the market risk that is supposedly the justification for private profit in the first place, exposing the PPP model as a state-sponsored guarantee of surplus value.

The Legal Trap: BOT and the Mortgage of the Future

The Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and BOT-Annuity models are the legal chains used to mortgage national assets for decades. Under these frameworks, private entities are granted sovereign-like rights to collect absolute rent through tolls and user fees for 20 to 30 years. These Concession Agreements are notoriously opaque and often lack excess profit-sharing clauses. If a highway sees more traffic than projected, the windfall does not return to the public exchequer to fund schools or hospitals; it disappears into corporate dividends.

The Ministry of Finance has deliberately insulated these projects from the rigorous oversight of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Instead, they rely on independent engineers and consultants, professionals who are frequently on the payroll of the very conglomerates they are meant to oversee. This creates a state of regulatory capture, where the private partner dictates pricing, safety standards, and service delivery, while the state acts merely as a debt collector for the corporation.

The Financial Nexus

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this pipeline is its reliance on Public Sector Banks (PSBs). Private players leverage high debt of often 70% to 80% of their portion from PSBs to fund these projects. Historically, when these gambles turn sour due to corporate mismanagement or over-leveraging, the private promoter simply walks away. The DEA’s framework continues the shameful tradition of failing to mandate personal guarantees from billionaire promoters.

As a result, the personal wealth of the 1% of the population remains untouched while the PSBs are left with mountains of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs). This is a direct assault on the savings of the Indian working class, as the state eventually uses tax money to recapitalise these banks, effectively paying for the failed bets of the capitalist class twice over.

Federal Coercion

The inclusion of 620 projects from the states and union territories (worth Rs 3.85 trillion) reveals the expansion of this loot across the federal structure. Led by Andhra Pradesh (270 projects) and Tamil Nadu (70), the Union Government is using the lure of Central VGF to coerce state governments into privatising local assets. This bypasses the mandate of state legislatures and forces local utilities water, sanitation, and local roads into the hands of monopolies, eroding state-level sovereignty over public resources.

This Rs 17 trillion roadmap is not a path to prosperity but a blueprint for a sSecond colonisation, this time by a corporate-communal nexus supported by a subservient state. It represents the final abandonment of the social contract in favour of a rentier state that exists only to facilitate the flow of capital from the many to the few.