Public-private partnerships (PPP) may have not worked very well in this country but they need time to mature and are the only option available when the government is short of resources, Dr M. Ramachandran, IAS (Retd) former Secretary, Urban Development Ministry, said in Mumbai last evening. He was speaking at the book launch function of his recently written memoirs, The Mavericks of Mussoorie .

Answering a question on the Smart Cities project and the fear that the special purpose vehicles (SPVs) set up for this purpose were bypassing local municipal corporations, Dr Ramachandran admitted that he also had these concerns initially, but had to concede that till municipal bodies were in a position to raise funds for development of infrastructure, there was no better alternative.

The memoirs penned by Dr Ramachandran is his ninth book. The previous eight books were focussed on issues related to urban infrastructure and project planning. He said he was encouraged to write the book by the persuasion of two ministers with whom he had worked in his career, S. Jaipal Reddy and Venkiah Naidu (now the Vice-President). This would throw light on the larger government agenda as well as provide ideas and start discussions, he said.

He hoped that the book would remove misgivings that the Indian Administrative Service was just a cosy place for insiders, who only helped themselves. There was a role for proactive officers in bringing about change even while being part of the system, he said.

B.N. Makhija, IAS (Retd), who released the book at the ICFAI Business School (IBS) in Mumbai, said the four pillars of a civil servant's life - Industry, Integrity, Neutrality and Anonymity - remain as relevant today as they did when he joined the service many decades ago.

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