India's Committee of Secretaries relaxes land-border bar on BHEL tenders for five years
BHEL procurement teams must accept bids from neighbouring-country firms for 21 items
Change
India's Committee of Secretaries has suspended the Rule 144(xi) land-border bidder-registration requirement for 21 specified Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) tender items — including cold-rolled grain-oriented steel and high-grade capacitor paper — for five years.
Why it matters
Procurement for the 21 listed items is now required to include bids that depend on advanced industrial materials not readily available in India. India's Union Cabinet has also amended foreign direct investment (FDI) rules to treat non-controlling land- (LBC) beneficial ownership up to 10% as eligible under the automatic route, changing investor-eligibility screening for public procurements.
Implications
- — BHEL tender-administration teams must remove Rule 144(xi) land-border bidder-registration exclusions from tender documents and apply the CoS exemption immediately when issuing or evaluating tenders for the 21 specified items — failure to apply the exemption will exclude neighbouring-country bidders from evaluation.
- — Corporate FDI compliance and investor-onboarding teams must treat non-controlling land- (LBC) beneficial ownership up to 10% as eligible for the automatic route now when filing or routing FDI notifications — filing under the wrong approval route risks regulatory rejection or delayed clearance.
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Source
View on Economic Times