People's Perception of Public Private Partnership: A Case Analysis of Tiruppur Water Supply and Sewage Project

The world is currently witnessing pluralization of state and not-state actors in the governance set up, which was once exclusively the domain of state. This in turn, has brought about sweeping changes in public sector with the emergence of “Public-Private Partnership” (PPP) in which public and private sectors are collaborating with one or another way in delivering public services. Although the idea of involving the private sector in the public sector activities is not a new phenomenon, the way it is involved today and the word “partnership” or “collaboration” used to refer this relation has been creating several questions in the minds of scholars, academicians and practitioners. One such popular question intensifying across several minds is the stakeholder's perception towards these PPP projects in general, and more specifically, the perception of people towards such projects in particular. Deciphering the perception of people is the core aspect of such PPP projects, as they are the beneficiaries whom the project intends to serve. One such effort is made in this paper to make sense of people's perception by taking the case of Tiruppur Water Supply and Sewerage (TWSS) Project. There are various industries, Tiruppur city dwellers and another 15 way-side village Panchayat people, who are beneficiaries of this project. The purpose of this paper is to identify, describe and evaluate the critical issues and challenges associated with the perceptions of the people, on the Tiruppur Water Supply and Sewerage project. The data for this study was drawn from field research by distributing schedules to inhabitants of Tiruppur, particularly focusing on the water supplied by Tiruppur Municipal Corporation (TMC), which buys water from TWSS project implemented by the New Tiruppur Area Development Corporation Limited (NTADCL). The study throws light on people's perception in Public Private Partnership.