WEBINAR: Sustainable Procurement in Indian Railways - Looking Ahead

This webinar focuses on Indian Railways’s journey with sustainable public procurement. It discusses how the challenges of Indian context were addressed while negotiating the SPP path.

The original information about the webinar

DATE: 10 September 2014

TIME:14h00-15h00 CEST

RECORDING: You can access the webinar here.

Introduction to Indian Railways and their work on sustainable public procurement (SPP).

Indian Railways (IR) is the third largest rail network in the world with a revenue base of more than $ 22 billion. On average, every day it carries 3 million tonnes of freight and 23 million passengers – equal to the population of Australia.

This webinar focuses on IR’s journey with SPP so far and its strategy for mainstreaming SPP in India. It discusses how challenges were addressed while negotiating the SPP path. It further presents a series of examples, based on actual cases, on how the sustainable procurement concept could be integrated into different stages of the procurement cycle: from identification of needs, to management and monitoring.

This webinar is informative for stakeholders around the world who find themselves poised on the same growth curve.

Indian Railways

Directly operating under the Ministry of Railway for the Government of India, IR is one of the largest public procurers in India. It has been a pioneer in adopting the best industries practices such as e-procurement, e-auction, reverse auction etc. to enhance transparency, equity and competitiveness in procurement processes.

The current public procurement framework in India is silent on SPP and does not 'require' public authority to ‘include’ environmental criteria in the subject matter of the tender. Besides, there are other challenges for implementing SPP, such as lack of stakeholder awareness, knowledge and skills required for including sustainability criteria, poor availability of greener products, absence of eco-labeling schemes and standards, and perceived higher cost of greener products etc.

Despite these challenges, IR has integrated environmental and social criteria in procurement under the existing policy framework. Thus, IR offers a unique perspective on how SPP/GPP concept can be integrated in procurement decisions even without a legislative mandate on SPP, provided it is done in a transparent, equitable and fair manner.

Presenter: Sanjay Kumar, Indian Railways

Moderator: Cuchulain Kelly, UNEP

Unsplash - Jehu Christan

Published on September 10, 2014