This Ministry of Finance (Department of Expenditure) advisory dated 22 July 2026 communicates a clear policy message to all Central Government procuring entities: consultancy tenders should not prescribe unnecessarily restrictive qualification and evaluation criteria that reduce competition. It directs ministries to follow the principles laid down in the Manual for Procurement of Consultancy Services, 2025 while framing EoIs and RFPs.
Key messages of the advisory
1. Avoid excessive turnover requirements
Many tenders were found to demand disproportionately high annual turnover from consulting firms.
Such high turnover requirements unnecessarily exclude competent MSMEs and mid-sized consulting firms.
2. Give greater importance to key experts
Procuring entities should not overemphasize the firm’s corporate experience.
Greater weight should be given to the qualifications, methodology, and experience of the proposed key personnel who will actually execute the assignment.
3. Do not prescribe excessive staff strength
Eligibility criteria should not require bidders to have a very large permanent payroll unless genuinely required.
Staff requirements should match the actual manpower needed for the assignment.
4. Qualification criteria must be assignment-specific
Criteria should reflect only the capability and resources actually needed to perform the assignment—not arbitrary thresholds.
5. Use simple pass/fail criteria at the EoI stage where possible
Instead of complicated marking systems, procuring entities should often use minimum qualifying benchmarks (e.g., two similar projects, minimum turnover) to shortlist consultants.
6. Reduce weightage for firm experience
The Manual recommends that the consulting firm’s experience generally receive only 5–10% weight in technical evaluation, while methodology and key experts should receive much higher weight.
Practical implications
For consulting firms small firms, this advisory is highly positive because it:
Improves opportunities for specialised boutique and mid-sized consulting firms.
Discourages tender conditions favouring only very large firms.
Encourages competition based on technical capability and expert team, rather than only turnover and staff size.
Makes it easier for high-quality niche consultants to compete with larger firms.
Bottom line
This advisory is a significant procurement reform. It seeks to make Government consultancy procurement fairer, more competitive, and quality-oriented by discouraging restrictive eligibility conditions and emphasizing the competence of the proposed team and methodology over the size of the consulting firm
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