The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Monday claimed that global software companies were being given "undue advantage" in sensitive IT projects of some key state-run bodies and the Indian Railways by designing tenders to suit them rather than their Indian counterparts. "The current practice of designing tender specifications in large PSUs, defence and government information and communication technology projects to select only foreign MNC software products is preventing participation of Indian software product vendors," senior party leader Gurudas Dasgupta said.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said it was also helping the foreign MNCs to create a monopoly and sell their products to Indian government and defence establishments "at artificially high prices".
In his six-page letter, he gave details of tenders issued by the Railways, Powergrid Corporation, Indian Navy and the Army and asked the government to instruct PSUs and other government bodies that "tender specifications and evaluation criteria should not be made in a manner that only foreign MNC products are selected".
Maintaining that Indian product vendors should be allowed to compete in these bids, Dasgupta said "high security defence and PSU/government projects, in particular, should explore the possibility of using Indian software products and not rely on foreign software".
On the Railway's human resource and material management project for which a tender was issued, he said as the project would hold "critical information" about 1.6 million employees, software developed by Indian companies with Indian Intellectual Property Rights should be encouraged.
Maintaining that a Powergrid tender had a clause that firms with "maximum turnover and maximum profit" would be favoured, Dasgupta said due to this and some other clauses, "only one or two specific foreign MNC products will qualify to compete".
"Since such overly specific and biased clauses can only be fulfilled by one or two foreign software product vendors, they also ensure that no Indian software product vendors can participate," the CPI leader said.
Similar was the case in regard to tenders floated by the Navy on 'Naval Aviation Management System' and the Army for its 'Computerised Inventory Control Project', he added.
