The public-private partnership framework established under the PPP Act 2015 contemplates two routes to a project. In the first, a public authority identifies a need, prepares a project and takes it to market. In the second, a private party identifies the need and brings a proposal to the authority unsolicited.
The second route is legitimate, materially underused, and unforgiving of poor preparation. Nearly everything that determines whether an unsolicited proposal progresses happens before it is submitted.
What the route is for
Unsolicited proposals exist because the public sector cannot originate every good idea. A private party with sector expertise, proprietary technology or an unusual view of a corridor may see a viable project that no ministry has scoped. The framework provides a way for that proposal to be assessed rather than ignored.
The trade-off is competition. A project that arrives from outside has not been market-tested, and the state has a duty to establish value for money before granting a long-dated concession over a public asset or revenue stream. Every unsolicited regime resolves that tension through some form of competitive exposure at a later stage, and the specific mechanism applied in any given case must be confirmed against current guidance rather than assumed from precedent elsewhere.
Why it is underused
Three reasons, in our experience. The first is that sponsors expect the route to be faster than open procurement. It is not reliably faster; it moves the work earlier and shifts the cost of preparation onto the proponent. Sponsors who chose it for speed tend to abandon it when the appraisal questions begin.
The second is the fear of losing the project to a competitor at the competitive stage. That fear is rational, and it is best addressed by building a proposal whose advantages are structural rather than informational — a technology position, a land position, an operating capability — rather than by hoping the competitive stage does not occur.
The third is that most unsolicited submissions we have reviewed are not proposals at all. They are concepts: a sector, an indicative capital cost, a sponsor profile and an expression of interest. An authority cannot appraise a concept, and returning it costs the sponsor its most valuable asset, which is the presumption of seriousness.
The front-loaded work
A proposal that progresses generally contains, at submission, most of what an authority would otherwise have to commission:
- A demand study grounded in observed data rather than in national growth assumptions applied to a sector.
- A technical solution at a level of definition sufficient to support a capital cost estimate that will not move by an order of magnitude.
- A financial model with transparent assumptions, a stated funding structure, and an explicit statement of what public support — if any — is being requested. Ambiguity here is fatal.
- A value-for-money argument that compares the partnership route against conventional public procurement rather than asserting its superiority.
- A risk allocation matrix that accepts risks the private party is better placed to manage, rather than one that returns every material risk to the state.
- Evidence of land and environmental feasibility sufficient to show the project can physically exist where it is proposed.
That is a substantial spend before any commitment from the state. It is also the entire filter. Proposals of this quality are rare enough that they receive attention on their merits.
The bid-matching problem
The commercial question every board asks is how the proponent is protected if the project is exposed to competition. The honest answer is that protection comes from three places, none of which is a guarantee.
Recognition of development cost, where the applicable rules provide for it, returns some of the outlay. Whatever incumbency advantage the framework confers — the ability to match, a scoring advantage, or first position in a best-and-final process — has value, but its precise form must be verified for the specific project rather than presumed.
The most durable protection is genuine differentiation. A competitor can match a price. It cannot match a site the proponent controls, a technology it licenses exclusively, or an operating record in the specific asset class. Sponsors who build proposals around a differentiated position treat the competitive stage as a formality. Sponsors whose only advantage was arriving first do not.
Practical guidance
Engage the relevant line ministry before the authority, because the ministry has to want the project to exist. Submit once, complete, rather than early and iteratively — the first submission sets the register in which everything afterwards is read. Be explicit about public support requirements from the outset; a request for viability gap funding disclosed late reads as concealment even when it is not. Assume competition and structure to win it. And treat the timetable honestly with your own investment committee: appraisal, approval, procurement and financial close are separate stages with separate clocks.
The unsolicited route rewards a very specific kind of sponsor: one prepared to spend real money proving a project before anyone has promised them anything. That is a narrow group, which is precisely why the route remains open.