Do your purchases in the open, on the net: CVC to Govt

After raising the issue of political pressure on PSUs, Chief Vigilance Commissioner P Shankar has decided to spruce up procurement procedure...

After raising the issue of political pressure on PSUs, Chief Vigilance Commissioner P Shankar has decided to spruce up procurement procedures in government departments to ensure officials have minimum personal interface with corporates or other parties doing business with them.

In a note dated December 18, the CVC has directed all government departments, PSUs and banks to switch over to e-procurement or e-sale.

While departments which already have websites have been told to implement the order from January 1, 2004, a cushion of an additional three months has been given to those which do not have these facilities.

The December 18 note, sent to government departments at the Centre and states, PSUs, public sector banks and insurance companies, says: ‘‘Improving vigilance administration is possible only when system improvements are made to prevent the possibilities of corruption.’’ In order to bring this transparency and curb malpractices, the order further states, the CVC—in exercise of its powers under Section 8(1)(h)—would like departments to follow certain directions. These relate to an open tender system for procurement of goods and services, or for auction or sale of these.

The directions are:

n Apart from publicity of tender in newspapers and trade journals, forms for participation should also be available through websites

n The websites should have forms which can be downloaded. Submission through the Net should also be a legally valid means of participation in the tender procedure

n Even in case of ads in newspapers and journals, the website address of government departments and organisations should be specified

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n In case a government organisation wants to charge for these forms downloaded from websites, it should be done at the time of accepting bids from participants

The CVC has stated that while this is an interim measure, in future all government departments and organisations should aim to switch over to e-procurement/e-sale wherever feasible and practical.

Pointing out that ‘‘allegations have been made regarding inadequate or no publicity, and procurement officials not making available bid documents, application forms in order to restrict competition’’, the CVC said that the

new method may solve such problems.