Punjab Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal on Monday called for adopting standardised procedures, best practices and means of fairness and transparency in the process of public procurement of goods and services in government and semi-government organisations, particularly IT services.
Kaushal was delivering a keynote address at ‘Sensitization Workshop on Good Procurement Practices for Information Technology’ at MGSIPA Complex jointly organised by the Department of Governance Reforms, Punjab Governance Reforms Commission and Manufacturer’s Association of Information Technology (MAIT), the apex body representing the interests of the ICT Sector in India.
He said that uniform benchmarks should be established in the process of procurement at the government level and every organisation must follow those norms for formulating strategies in their sphere of activities.
A core team of highly motivated officials of different ranks should be constituted in every Government and Semi-Government Departments for managing procurement processes as per standardized procedure and practices so that there is no scope of any unfair practice.
Emphasizing the need for capacity building and optimal utilisation of manpower in every sector, Kaushal said that human resource development should be the focus area in every government department to harness potential of officers and officials for the benefit of society.
He further stressed that participation of every government functionary should be encouraged to strengthen the organisational structure.
He said that the objective of the workshop organised today is to create an I.T. related environment and culture in all Government Departments and to encourage the officials of all ranks to use the modern technologies for delivering speedy services to the people.
Emphasizing the need of conducting comprehensive review of procurement systems and to identify weaknesses or vulnerabilities in them, Kaushal impressed upon all the departments to monitor the programmes constantly and bring about changes in the systems keeping in view the pace of time.