The Central Vigilance Commission has asked central government departments and its Public Sector Undertakings not to pass on contracts to private entities and strictly follow its guidelines.

The action came after the anti—corruption watchdog noted irregularities in award of contracts by certain government departments and PSUs without competitive bidding and through “back to back tie ups“.

The Commission has been emphasising on the need for observing integrity, transparency, fairness and equity in all aspects of decision making including in tendering and award of contracts.

“However, the Commission is still receiving complaints regarding adoption of non—transparent methods in tendering and award of contracts. A number of such complaints pertain to award on nomination (single source procurement) basis instead of following a process of open competitive bidding,” the CVC noted.

The CVC has also observed that there have been instances where government organisations or PSUs obtain contract from other government departments or public sector undertakings and further award the same to private entities on back to back tie up basis without competitive tendering mechanism and without any significant value addition.

“This practice subverts the Commission’s emphasis on integrity, transparency, fairness and equity in decision making. It is, therefore, necessary to curb this practice,” the probity watchdog said in its recent directive and sought its strict implementation.

The Commission directed that details of all tenders awarded on nomination basis shall be posted on website in public domain, it asked in the order sent to all the central government departments, public sector banks and PSUs.

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