Govt to soon bring transparency in green public procurement

NEW DELHI, Jan 28:
Aiming to provide next level of ease of doing business in India, the Government today said it will soon put in place transparency in public procurement of green products.
Currently, environmental and green procurement laws in the country are under the purview of several ministries and other Government bodies, often with significant overlap in responsibility and oversight.
“As far as tendering is concerned, many alternative proposals are being considered so as to bring transparency. …The methods, procedure and criteria (for procurement) has to be same. That’s a long pending issue and the Government is seriously addressing those issues,” Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on the sidelines of second Indo-German Environment forum event here.
The Government will provide “next level of ease of doing business with predictable processes and mechanism in place in shorter time” with regard to public procurement of green products, he added.
The Minister was replying to a query on whether the government is addressing the concerns of developed nations with regard to India’s public procurement policy.
Stating that India is taking measures to address concerns of developed nations, Javadekar said, “I think Germany and other developed countries were facing many roadblocks earlier. But one by one, the Environment Ministry has provided an ease of doing business so far as permissions are concerned.
“We are moving towards one window shop where they will get clearance at one window. All ministries and authorities will be tied together. This is the beginning,” he said.
According to experts, India’s public procurement of green products and technologies has been on an ad-hoc basis. For instance, Indian Railways has taken measures to improve energy efficiency and installed green toilets on its coaches.
Stating that India will amend rules and laws to make economy more green, Javadekar said the Government is looking at scaling up solid waste management and water treatment technology, among others, and also giving more teeth to enforcement agencies that is lacking at present.
Besides, the Government is keen to get affordable and efficiency green technologies from across the world and also ensuring public participation, he added.
“My ministry has already taken a number of initiatives ensuring transparency and timely decision making. India today presents huge opportunities for the world to come here and do business. ..Opportunities are immense and the potential needs to be tapped,” he said.
He also said India is entering into technical cooperation agreement with Germany for fostering resource efficiency and sustainable management of secondary raw materials. “I wish the project breaks new grounds and leads to further collaboration in the field of resource efficiency.”
Seeking better business climate, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said that the companies are “still facing challenges” while investing in India despite they having rich experience in areas such as waste and water management, resource efficiency and sustainable urban development.
German companies are facing problems “particularly when it comes to public tendering and complex procurement rules, which vary from one administrative level to the next, making access to Indian market rather difficult,” she said.
For German investors to become more active in India, Hendricks said, “It is important to establish buying transparency rules, clear deadlines and decision making criteria as well as uniform methods of standards for award of contracts.”
India’s strong public procurement policy plays a central role in negotiations in Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the EU and India, she added.
Hendricks said that the country is keen to engage in India’s Clean India programme by supporting in cleaning rivers, management of urban waste and resource efficiency. (PTI)