Overview
- The state chief secretary issued a mid-July circular requiring procuring authorities to float fresh tenders at least three months before a contract expires and forbidding routine extensions.
- The directive covers government departments, panchayats, municipalities, state PSUs, statutory bodies and other parastatals and makes heads of departments personally responsible for compliance.
- The order demands monthly reviews of all contracts, requires lists to be shared with the Finance Department, and warns that unauthorised extensions or delays in tendering will be treated as serious breaches of financial discipline.
- The move follows internal findings that several agencies continued to work for departments without fresh tenders for years — in some reported cases since 2016–17 — with officials flagging seven long-running contracts in the health department that cost crores annually.
- Implementation will hinge on administrative capacity and Finance Department oversight, and officials have not yet publicly reported re-tendering results or disciplinary actions so the directive’s impact will depend on follow-through.