India: local-content preference margin in NHIDCL Mawlyngkhung–Panchgram highway RFP (Package-1)

Mechanism

The underlying 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), which mandates a bid-evaluation preference margin for "Class-I local supplier" bidders — those meeting a minimum local-content threshold — across central government procurement, including infrastructure agencies like NHIDCL. This RFP is one instance of that standing order being applied to a specific, large-value tender: Package-1 of the Mawlyngkhung (near Shillong, Meghalaya)–Panchgram (near Silchar, Assam) greenfield corridor, a 4-lane paved-shoulder highway under the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs-approved 166.80 km corridor (full corridor estimated at ~INR 22,864 crore; this package covers the first 45.645 km at ~INR 4,734.24 crore). The project runs on a Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM) basis, with RFP issued 2 January 2026 and technical bid opening 9 July 2026.

Severity is set low (2) because this is a routine, standing domestic-preference policy applied within a single infrastructure procurement rather than a new trade barrier — it does not restrict imports outright, only shifts bid-evaluation weighting toward Class-I local suppliers in civil-engineering and general-construction categories. No foreign supplier exclusion is involved.

Downstream implications

• Foreign civil-engineering and construction-materials contractors

bidding into Indian national-highway HAM tenders face a structural scoring disadvantage relative to Class-I local suppliers, reinforcing India's broader Atmanirbhar Bharat procurement posture in infrastructure.

• This is one of a large recurring class of GTA-logged Indian

sub-national/agency tenders (roads, metro rail) carrying the same Preference-to-Make-in-India margin — individually low severity, but cumulatively indicative of how systematically India's National Highways ecosystem (NHAI, NHIDCL, state PWDs) applies domestic preference to its multi-trillion-rupee infrastructure pipeline.

Open questions

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

designation for this specific package was not confirmed in the RFP summary available; the DPIIT order's default civil-works threshold (historically 50%) should be checked against the full RFP/technical schedule PDFs on nhidcl.com if higher precision is needed.

• Whether foreign bidders (e.g., from China, given the North-East

strategic-corridor context) are separately restricted from bidding at all, versus merely facing the preference-margin disadvantage.