When we talk about infrastructure in India, it’s usually in the context of potholes, delayed metro lines, or power outages. But our guest this week, Vinayak Chatterjee, brings a far deeper and more nuanced lens to the discussion. Vinayak walks us through the sector’s remarkable journey—from the crumbling systems of the 1990s to a present where power shortages are rare, road connectivity has transformed, and ports and airports have matured into global gateways. In this wide-ranging conversation, Vinayak shares sharp insights on what infrastructure development has gotten right, where the private sector came in (and fell out), and how public-private partnerships rose and declined. He discusses why infrastructure must now be seen not as a bottleneck but as a backbone—and why the next era will demand a new imagination that centres people, not just projects. It’s a candid account from someone who has observed the policy shifts and project rollouts up close for nearly three decades.