<p>Infrastructure bottleneck is a serious concern in India in its way of robust pace of economic progression. While many advanced economies and fiscal constrained developing countries have developed their physical infrastructure successfully either through private participation or through public-private partnership (PPP) model, in India, private participation in the process of infrastructure development has received lacklustre response.The main focus of this paper is to provide the conceptual framework and the status of private participation. It also identifies some generic issues such as inadequate transparency of procedures, inappropriate risk allocation, improper project appraisal, cost and time overruns, overlapping of regulatory independence, dearth of good governance, etc., which need attention to attract private investors to participate in the public infrastructure building.</p>