Model Concession Agreement (MCA) for Highway PPP Projects in India: Evolution and its Various Forms

Lack of standard framework for PPP projects in India necessitated introduction of Model Concession Agreement (MCA) for PPP Highway projects in mid-nineties, which outlines the policies and regulations for implementation of PPP projects. This paper covers the journey of development of the MCA since its inception. The core idea of development of MCA was to keep the balance of risk allocation and thereby making the bid attractive for bidders. Various forms of the MCA based contracts, depending upon the degree of project viability have been discussed and a comparative statement of the analysis is presented. Further, the criteria for adopting more appropriate form of MCA based contract is presented.