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Public procurement during the pandemic: experience of India and China

Yugank Goyal (FLAME University, Pune, India)

Journal of Public Procurement

ISSN: 1535-0118

Article publication date: 3 May 2022

Issue publication date: 23 August 2022

352

Abstract

Purpose

The paper examines the public procurement experiences of India and China during the Covid-19 pandemic and locates them in a framework it proposes. The paper aims to enrich the knowledge of how public procurement could be strategically used in emergencies.

Design/methodology/approach

For the two countries, the paper sieved through government orders and notifications promulgated during and for the pandemic, examined the prevailing laws and statutes that were invoked and comprehensively scanned online news portals to gather evidence. In addition, the author also engaged with select, relevant people in the sector who offered useful information about ground-level scenario.

Findings

It is found that as compared to China, in India (a) despite the presence of significant flexibilities, (b) there was a little divergence from standard procurement practices, perhaps explained by (c) weaker governance capacity and legitimacy, (c) more allocative (rather than structural) goals of procurement and (d) higher levels of centralization.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this paper are based entirely on secondary evidence limited to health care as a category of spend. This paper looks at two large countries and not their internal variations in procurement quality. The framework can also be enriched further by drawing additional categories to make the theoretical framework more promising.

Practical implications

The underlying design and motivation of public procurement policies in India need significant changes to make procurement policies responsive to disasters. Also, one can learn decentralization during emergency from the otherwise centralized politics in China.

Originality/value

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to compare pandemic procurement-related policies of the two large countries across the Himalayan border. It also attempts to develop a scale/framework on which emergency procurement in countries can be assessed.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This study was made possible by the grant of China‐India Visiting Scholars Fellowship, Ashoka University. The author would like to thank Kapil Patil and Arvind Yelery for their comments on the earlier draft. Discussions with George Du, Anand Kumar, Madhuranjan Kumar, Amrit Raj and Anup Kumar were insightful. Research assistance of Diya Patel was excellent.

Citation

Goyal, Y. (2022), "Public procurement during the pandemic: experience of India and China", Journal of Public Procurement, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 222-241. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOPP-07-2021-0046

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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