Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? Or Is It Just Public Procurement Gone Kaput? Some Insightful Contracting Perspectives on Pune’s Hyperloop Project (India)

Abstract

This working draft of a law & policy paper has been especially written as background reading material for a forthcoming session on public procurement reforms during in-service training of mid-career senior civil servants at LBSNAA, Mussoorie; with the simultaneous aim of submission to the 9th International Public Procurement Conference at Argentina in August 2020—the latter now stands postponed to April 2021 on account of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The paper looks at certain procurement aspects of the Pune Mumbai Hyperloop project, especially since it relied upon the "Swiss Challenge" variant of the "Unsolicited Proposals" method of procurement; and then develops its findings within the research context advanced earlier by Prof. Søreide and Prof Guasch on integrity in large public projects and PPP renegotiation/ award respectively.