The IL&FS fiasco represents India's domestic belt and road quicksand

It was as a newspaper-office intern in New Delhi in 1992 that I witnessed the birth of India’s homegrown belt-and-road initiative. The program was midwifed by an up-and-coming lender that few had then heard of: Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd.

It wasn’t called belt-and-road, a term that would gain currency much later as a catchphrase for China’s opaquely financed global infrastructure ambitions. There’s a lot of scrutiny now of those energy and transportation projects, and a growing discomfort that Beijing may be ensnaring developing countries in a debt trap. So it’s remarkable that India – itself a vocal critic of belt-and-road – allowed a local financier to do something similar on home turf, with little accountability or supervision.

A perennial paucity of budgetary resources has forced taxpayers to outsource infrastructure — not to the Chinese, but to local public-private partnerships led by IL&FS. However, in many instances, only the returns became private. Risks remained with the public.