Union Budget 2015-16: Curbing malfeasance in public procurement

Finance minister Arun Jaitley said that malfeasance in public procurement could be contained by having a procurement law and institutional structure.

Presenting his maiden budget, he urged Parliament to decide soon whether  a procurement law was needed, and the shape it should take if it was needed.

While stating that disputes arising in public contracts took a long time to resolve, and the process was very costly, he proposed the introduction of a Public Contracts (Resolution of Disputes) Bill to streamline the institutional arrangements for resolution of such disputes.

Jaitley had also proposed to introduce a Regulatory Reform Law that would bring about consistency of approach across various sectors of infrastructure to tackle the lack of common approach and philosophy in the regulatory arrangements prevailing with different sectors.