India: local-content preference margin in MoRTH Madhya Pradesh road tender (INR 397 crore)

Mechanism

The legal instrument is the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade's (DPIIT) Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017 (as amended, Order No. P-45021/2/2017-B.E.-II), which mandates a bid-evaluation preference margin (ordinarily a 20% purchase-preference margin over a 50% minimum local-content threshold) for "Class-I local supplier" bidders across central-government procurement, including MoRTH infrastructure contracts. This filing records one instance of that standing order applied to a specific tender: a Ministry of Road Transport & Highways Request for Proposal for a road-construction (EPC) contract in Madhya Pradesh valued at INR 397 crore, targeting preferences in civil-engineering, general-construction, and engineering-services categories. GTA discloses the contract value but not the tender reference number, exact preference-margin percentage, or affected-trading-partner list, which sit behind an account-gated view.

Severity is set low (2), consistent with the companion NHAI/MoRTH localisation-preference filings from the same GTA batch: this is a routine, standing domestic-preference policy applied within a single road-construction contract, not a new trade barrier. It shifts bid-evaluation weighting toward Class-I local suppliers without outright excluding foreign bidders. Basis is set mixed because the INR 397 crore contract value is a disclosed quantum, even though the preference-margin percentage itself is not.

Downstream implications

• Foreign civil-engineering, road-construction, and

engineering-services contractors bidding into this Madhya Pradesh road tender face a structural scoring disadvantage relative to Class-I local suppliers, consistent with India's Atmanirbhar Bharat procurement posture.

• Another instance of the large recurring class of GTA-logged Indian

MoRTH/NHAI/NHIDCL road and transit tenders carrying the same Preference-to-Make-in-India margin.

Open questions

• Tender reference number and exact route/section were not

independently confirmed — GTA's full description sits behind an account-gated view. Confirm against MoRTH's e-procurement portal if higher precision is needed.

• Exact local-content percentage threshold applied to the Class-I

designation for this specific tender was not independently confirmed against the full RFP document.