The Indian Government is planning to introduce a Dispute Resolution Bill that will look at providing relief to India public-private partnership projects covering all infrastructure sectors.

It will give basic framework for resolving disputes in different scenario and also specify timelines for the process to start and end.

This Dispute Resolution Bill will further outline the creation of a body that will have regulatory powers along with a proposal to have a separate appellate tribunal for all the infrastructure sectors.

The Bill aims to encourage investors to invest further as there would be transparent system in place for resolving disputes, and looking at unlocking the investments which are stuck in stalled and delayed projects.

Last week, the Government of India approved a resolution for  substitution of Concessionaires in case of both ongoing and completed projects in order to allow investors to recycle capital more quickly and therefore attract more interest to stuck road projects.

These regulation changes come after several investors tried to pull out from road projects:

• On January 7th, GMR Infrastructure Ltd informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that it had terminated the concession agreement entered into with National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the US$1.2 billion six laning of 555 Km Kishangarh - Udaipur -Ahmedabad highway.

• Days later GVK Infrastructure also pulled out of the Rs 3,000-crore ($559 million) Shivpuri-Dewas project in Madhya Pradesh. Both infrastructure firms cited problems with environmental clearances to proceed with construction of the projects.

• Ashoka Buildcon - a listed firm with investments from private equity major SBI Macquarie - was also said in late April to exit from a highway PPP project in Odisha, citing delay in regulatory approvals.