India: local-content preference margin in NHAI Panipat–Khanna NH-44 rehabilitation tender, Package 1, Haryana & Punjab (INR 275.49 crore)

Mechanism

The legal instrument is the same standing order underlying the companion Package 2 and Package 3 filings on this corridor: 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 NHAI infrastructure contracts. This filing records a third, distinct instance of that standing order applied to a companion NHAI Request for Proposal (tender reference NHAI/HR/Panipat-Khanna/NH-44/Pkg-1) for the rehabilitation and strengthening of the Panipat–Khanna section of NH-44, spanning Haryana and Punjab, valued by GTA at INR 275.49 crore, targeting preferences in civil-engineering, general-construction, and engineering-services categories. GTA's underlying affected-sector breakdown and affected-trading-partner detail sit behind an account-gated view; the RFP nature, road section, and value were confirmed from the public state-act summary page.

Severity is set low (2), consistent with the companion NHAI Package 2 (Haryana & Punjab), Package 3 (Punjab), Tamil Nadu (Madurai–Kayathar), Jharkhand (Kutchery Chowk–Piska More PBMC), and Maharashtra & Goa Division filings from the same GTA batch: this is a routine, standing domestic-preference policy applied within a single road-works contract, not a new trade barrier. It shifts bid-evaluation weighting toward Class-I local suppliers without outright excluding foreign bidders.

Downstream implications

• Foreign civil-engineering, road-maintenance, and

engineering-services contractors bidding into NHAI Haryana/Punjab tenders face a structural scoring disadvantage relative to Class-I local suppliers, consistent with India's Atmanirbhar Bharat procurement posture.

• Confirms the Panipat–Khanna NH-44 corridor is being tendered in at

least three packages (Pkg-1, Pkg-2, and Pkg-3) in the same GTA batch, each carrying the identical Preference-to-Make-in-India margin — completing the set of companion filings flagged as open questions in the Package 2 and Package 3 actions.

Open questions

• Exact contract-award status was not independently confirmed — GTA's

underlying tender detail is account-gated. Confirm against NHAI's e-tendering portal if higher precision is needed.