Need for sticking to PPR

The reasons behind the latest move by the central procurement technical unit (CPTU) of the government are otherwise quite clear. This was necessitated in view of the existing practices about public procurement of goods and services. This CPTU has thus reportedly issued a circular requesting the ministries, departments and all other relevant agencies to strictly adhere to the Public Procurement Rules (PPR). Such rules were designed to ensure transparency and accountability in public procurement. In its circular, the CPTU has particularly referred to certain provisions of the PPR that are allegedly not being followed by the agencies concerned while making procurement.
One of the rules in question relates to the responsibilities of the tender evaluation committees (TECs) concerning assessment of responsive bidders' capacity and financial strength to effectively follow the conditions laid down in bid documents. Other rules mentioned in the CPTU circular point to the need for proper verification of the previous experience of the bidders by the TECs and the act of passing on the responsibility to the next successful bidder/s, in the event of the failure of the selected lowest bidder in carrying out the procurement order as specified in the bid documents. The relevant agencies have been found to  bypass the requirements of the Public Procurement Act-2006 and the PPR framed in 2008. Though the extent of non-adherence to PPR is not known, yet it is considered to be quite substantial.
The rules stipulate competitive bidding for government procurement of goods and services valued above a certain amount of public money. These are well purported to addressing the problems of irregularities, financial or otherwise, involved in the process. The e-tendering is one important step that is meant to help make the public procurement corruption-free. But such pious objectives of the PPR have, to a great extent, remained unfulfilled so far. Any independent evaluation will certainly bear this out. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to foresee any major change in the ground-level situation about public procurement, in the wake of the latest circulation issued by the CPTU, unless monitoring is properly and routinely made about compliance with the PPR through some effective institutional arrangements.
Very often both print and electronic media run reports on clashes mainly between the rival groups of the main ruling party, centring  around public tenders for procurement. Allegations run about genuine contractors/suppliers being debarred from participating in public procurement bids. Even at times, physical force is applied in the process. Greasing the palms of the local muscle-flexing political leaders and workers or influential persons has become the norm for participation in public procurement bids by the 'genuine' parties. Furthermore, the very objective behind the farming of the PPA gets at times defeated when the government accepts unsolicited or non-competitive bids, in the cases of large development projects, or adopts law that indemnifies against acceptance of unsolicited bids.
Ensuring a relatively clean public procurement system has been the sole objective of the PPR under which specific rules were subsequently framed. All these steps were taken because graft and other irregularities continued to eat up a sizeable portion of the fund employed in the public procurement of goods and services. Successive governments did admit the existence of widespread wrongdoing in public procurement-related matters. But the vested interests are doing their best to stop or delay or frustrate the process that aims at stemming the rot. It is now for the government to decide whether it means real business about the PPR and rules framed under it.