White Paper – Business Recommendations for Public Procurement Policy in India
Procurement is an activity of finding, acquiring, buying goods, services or works from an external source, through tendering or competitive bidding process. It is an integral part of governance and financial management system of any country and it accounts for a substantial amount of global and national expenditure. In India, estimates of public procurement vary between 20 percent of GDP (WTO estimates) to 30 percent of GDP (OECD estimates). Its importance can be highlighted by the fact that some of the important ministries of the Government of India such as the Railways, Defense and Telecom devote almost 50 percent of their budget to procurement. As a result, a properly designed and implemented procurement law is long overdue that could improve the financial management and bring large financial and governance benefits in the short and long run.