It will allow the central paramilitary forces to not only frame the QRs but also finalise them at their level for expediting the procurement process

by Dalip Singh

NEW DELHI: The home ministry's new procurement policy seeks to minimise delays, ensure transparency, delegate financial powers and show more trust in officers while laying emphasis on acquiring state-of-the-art technology, a close reading shows.

The ministry has also shown compassion in the policy, released on Tuesday, as it has empowered seven paramilitary forces - such as CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP and NSG - and Intelligence Bureau and National Investigation Agency to foot entire funeral expenses incurred in case of death of non-gazetted officers on duty.

Till now, all officers, from director general (DG) to commandant of a battalion, could spend only Rs 8,000 per casualty. The fresh guidelines, in a bid to check corruption in hardware and other purchases, say that quality requirements (QRs) and item trial directives (TDs) should not be "vendor specific" but must be "detailed, realistic, achievable, verifiable, broad-based, generic" and end up in procurement of equipment suited to operational requirement of forces.

Further, to speed up decision-making, the new policy specifies that instead of DGs, who are occupied with running the entire organisation, special DGs and additional DGs will now head the meetings of tender purchase committee and other panels of procurement.

This is besides merging threestage sanction process into two. The new policy seeks to undo the unwieldy procedure followed earlier, according to ministry officials, which resulted in bulk of the Rs 10,000 crore allocated over the past five years for police modernisation remaining unspent.

Buying even a small item would take minimum two years and by that time acquisition would require an upgradation, officials said on condition of anonymity.

To ensure operational effectiveness and time-bound modernisation of forces to outsmart adversaries, the new policy seeks to check overindulgence by the ministry itself and trust-deficit towards the forces.

It allows the central paramilitary forces to not only frame the QRs but also finalise them at their level for expediting the procurement process.

Under some sub-heads for police modernisation budget allocation, DGs' financial powers have gone up multifold. For instance, chiefs of paramilitary forces can now buy computer and peripherals, barring laptops and notebooks, worth Rs 5 crore, up from the earlier cap of Rs 1crore. Similarly, DGs of six central forces have been brought on a par with the DG of counter-terrorism force National Security Guard and allowed to procure items for trial purposes up to Rs 2 core, twice the earlier cap. Among others, the new policy has ushered in steep hikes in DGs' financial powers in land purchase, from Rs 34 lakh to Rs 5 crore, and technical works, from Rs 1crore to Rs 2 crore.