India, Oct. 29 -- Delhi's urban challenges are increasingly interconnected. Transport, housing, water, sanitation, energy, and health care form part of a wider urban system, in which decisions in one sector, more often than not, affect outcomes in others. As the national capital addresses the demands of a growing metropolis, the challenge is to ensure that investment, institutional capacity and technology translate into reliable public services. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can most certainly contribute to this effort, but their success depends on the quality of governance that underpins them.

The case for PPPs, across sectors, rests on the potential to combine public oversight with private capital, expertise and operational capabi...