Rs 30K cr faulty tenders cancelled to promote Make in India: Official

Restrictive and discriminative tender practices prevent participation of domestic companies in government procurement, hurting ‘Make in India’ initiatives.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) from time to time has intervened to change conditions in those tenders in order to promote ‘‘Made in India’’ goods.

“Many of the restrictive and discriminative tender practices have been identified. Almost Rs 30,000 crore (worth) of tenders have been cancelled because of discriminatory practices,” DPIIT Secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra said here at a function.

He said the vigilance cases have been ordered by the Central Vigilance Commission wherever the department felt that a tender has been floated deliberately with a mala fide intention to deny a level-playing field to an Indian player.

Goyal asks industry to expand export basket Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday asked the industry to look for ways to expand the country’s export basket by adding more value-added products and cut shipments of raw materials. He said the country’s export basket is changing but it is not changing at fast pace.

“We are moving from some raw materials to intermediates. Can we collectively look at changing basket of exports to do more value-added products?

Can we reduce exports of, let’s say, iron ore and export high-quality steel? Can we stop exporting alumina, and stop importing aluminium products?,” he said here.

“Can we see how we can become value-added producers so that the Indian basket of manufacturing changes,” the minister questioned.

He said India’s share in the world’s trade is in single digit for many products. “Our government has identified a few champion sectors, like textiles, fisheries and IT, to expand and become a world leader in exports. Our government is swadeshi and personally, I am swadeshi. Therefore, we want to encourage our domestic investors on priority. We will fight for their cause,” Goyal said.

He also said any country, which does not allow equal and reciprocal access to our products and services in their country, by law “we will stop them from participating in government contracts in India”.