NEW DELHI: .The discretionary powers of ministers and bureaucrats will either be shelved or severely curtailed

Tasked to draft a national policy on government procurements, a group of ministers (GoM) headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee feels that abuse of discretionary powers plays a major role in fostering corruption, be it procurement of rice or purchase of aircraft.

With the total government procurement - from the Centre to panchayat level - worth a huge Rs 11 lakh crore, the GoM decided that elimination of arbitrariness in procurement procedure had to be given priority in the drafting of national policy, sources said.

The GoM meeting was attended by A K Antony, P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, M Veerappa Moily, Salman Khurshid, Dinesh Trivedi and V Narayansamy.

The group of ministers decided to expeditiously draft a national policy on procurement and also a law to fix accountability on the people entrusted with the task of public procurements by various departments.

India is one of the few countries which does not have a national policy in this regard. Even countries like Afghanistan and Nepal have a mechanism on public procurement in place. Both the national policy as well as the law would be ready for being placed before Parliament during the winter session, sources said.

The GoM identified the weaknesses in the procurement regime as absence of dedicated policy making department, central law, credible complaint and grievance redressal mechanism and standard tender documents.

It also discussed generic measures to check misconduct in relation to procurement, which included:

*All procurements should be after competition between suppliers

*All states and Union Territories should have a "Transparency in Procurement Act" stipulating the methodology for procurement, identify authorities for procurement decisions and a mechanism to look into irregularities

*Criteria for evaluation of bids be laid down before the auction process begins, which cannot be changed under any circumstance

*Procurement wings of departments to carry out market research to arrive at reasonableness or otherwise bid

*Only officials with proven integrity should be involved in the procurement process

*Payments to suppliers to be settled promptly

*Discretionary powers play a major role in fostering corruption, be it procurement of rice or purchase of aircraft. The GoM has decided to eliminate arbitrariness in the procurement procedure and replace it with a national policy.