Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Corporate Affairs

19-March-2012 14:37 IST

CCI highlights the competition issues in public procurement

Under the competition advocacy initiatives, the Competition Commission of India has been organizing meetings, seminars, workshops etc. with the various stake holders to spread awareness about the Competition Law and the Commission.

As part of this initiative CCI organized a workshop on the topic ‘Public Procurement & Competition Law’ at SCOPE Convention Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi on 14th March, 2012 in collaboration with SCOPE. The objective of the workshop was to familiarize Central Govt., Public sector enterprises, about the importance and benefits of fair competition and ensuring compliance of the provisions of competition act by them.

The workshop was inaugurated by Shri Ashok Chawla, Chairperson CCI and was attended by 77 delegates representing 36 CPSEs. The Chairperson in his keynote address highlighted the shift of focus on public procurement. An overarching law on the subject is in the offing which will address the concerns of both procurers and supplies. Sharing his knowledge about procurement laws in other jurisdictions, the Chairperson mentioned that procure and competition laws have become flavor of the season.

During the technical sessions, the resource persons in addition to giving a general overview of the Competition Law have also underscored the competition issues in Public Procurement. The grey area of bid rigging in public procurement and its detection and prevention remained the focus. The preventive measures in the form of Competition Compliance Programme to be adapted by CPSEs were apprised to the participants. Draft Public Procurement Bill which is in public domain for eliciting comments was discussed in detail. Queries, views, comments of the participants on the draft bill were addressed up to their satisfaction. All the sessions have been very interactive with takeaways for both the sides.

RC/JR

Competition in public procurement: emphasis on preventing bid rigging and adopting compliance programmes to promote fair procurement. The workshop focused on competition issues in public procurement, highlighting bid rigging risks and methods for detection and prevention, and promoted adoption of Competition Compliance Programmes by public sector enterprises; participants also discussed the Draft Public Procurement Bill and comparative procurement law approaches to strengthen competitive procurement processes.