Assessing Traps and Risks in Government Tenders using Contract Scoring Analysis

Theme: Legal Framework; Module: Department Workings

Author: Dr. Pradeep Reddy Sarvareddy

Published Date: 17 Jan 2026

Most contractors decide to bid on Tenders based on the most common factors like Project value, location and the Department's reputation.  But how can one say that a Contract is “good” or “bad”?  How to evaluate tens or hundreds of Projects for traps and risks?  We explore a pre-tender stage evaluation for the Government Department and the same analysis by the Contractors at the tendering stage to test a tender on multiple factors like engineering, law, finance, time, etc.  By adopting this situation, there can be financial benefits to the Contractor and the Government Department.  Experience that is translated as a Scoring Analysis can help you decide. 

In India, most Government Contracting still carries the colonial mindset.  We need to break out of this mindset and start the change with the three components of the Government Contracting, i.e., the Contractor, the Government and the Contract.  Let the Contractor improve, upgrade and reborn with knowledge and professionalism.  Let the Government respect the Contractor and treat Contractors as Partners.  Let the Contracts be rewritten to benefit all the players.  In this article, let us focus on the Contract, in a quantitative method.

Most people say that Government Contracts are “bad”.  But how does one define “bad”.  There are multiple views and something aspect one considers “bad” may be “good” for someone else.  Instead of saying “bad”, what if we say that the person has a “credit score of 600”?  This number (i.e., a quantitative method) is something which everyone can understand.  So, what if we establish a “Contract Score” and then evaluate a Contract?  Why not let the Department itself conduct a self-assessment, that way, who better than the creator to question himself?

Instead of a “post-mortem”, let us conduct a “pre-tender Contract Score”.  A structured pre‑tender self‑assessment by the Government Department is the one thing that could save crores and prevent years of disputes to all the stakeholders.  In mature contracting systems like FIDIC‑based works, the Department is expected to examine its own contract before tendering.  FIDIC has always insisted that risks must be clearly allocated and baseline information must be complete, otherwise the contract becomes a trap.

Another way to think about this is how banks evaluate contractors.  Before giving a contractor credit, banks check the balance sheets, past completion history, machinery details and even cash‑flow cycles of Contractors.  Banks “stress‑test” the contractor.  Similarly, a government department must stress‑test its own tender.  Has the Department clearly investigated soil conditions?  Has the land actually been handed over or is it “expected to be available soon”?  Does the BOQ match the drawings?  Has the design been reviewed for constructability? 

The change in the thought process comes from a simple but powerful method: the reverse‑chair test.  Before floating the tender, the department should sit in the contractor’s chair and ask: Would I bid on this happily?  Would I risk my money on this?  In other words, would the Government sign this Contract as a “Contractor”.  If the answer is “No”, then, the Contract is “bad”.  When a bridge tender gives pile drawings but only two boreholes for a 1‑km stretch, the contractor sees claims written all over it.  But when the department does the reverse‑chair test, these issues become obvious even before the contractor reads the tender.

This is not theory but it is an everyday site reality.  Think of a four‑lane road project where half the embankment failed because the soil was weaker than assumed.  Contractors didn’t cause that failure but the weak soil investigation did.  Or an irrigation canal where the schedule said “monsoon work allowed” but the access roads disappeared under water every year.  Or an urban building project where the foundation drawings showed soft soil, and the excavation revealed hard rock instead of soil which took longer to break & excavate.  These are everyday headaches.

Internationally, structured pre‑tender diagnostics have naturally reduced the price bid variations also.  In large Middle East metro projects, once Department started releasing complete geological baselines, the difference between L1 and L4 bidders shrank noticeably because nobody needed to guess unknown risks.  In African dam projects, after Department began listing residual risks openly (like river flow unpredictability), contractors stopped increasing bids with 20% to 30% extra amounts, and the Department profited.

We actually see the same pattern in India even without formal studies or official reports.  In NHAI highway tenders when full geotech reports, Right-of-Way (ROW) handover charts and utility shifting maps were provided clearly, the bid variations were small.  But in tenders where half the information was “to be confirmed”, the bid variations were dramatically huge, which means Contractors were bidding with extra amounts for risks.  Contractors aren’t scared of difficult jobs but are scared of dark spaces in tenders.

This is exactly what the eight‑index system addresses, a concept of “astha digbandhanam”.  Think of these as eight common traps that cost contractors money: unclear scope, missing baseline data, skewed risk distribution, unrealistic timelines, vague payment milestones, unclear escalation provisions, mismatched drawings and BOQs, and unclear dispute handling methods.  Contractors lose money through these eight areas more than anything else.

Example: A contractor bidding a river bridge project checks the tender using the eight‑index lens and finds that the riverbed strata vary wildly.  The department’s tender says “piles approximately 25m deep”, but the borelogs show 18 m in some areas and 40 m in others.  A department using these eight indexes would catch this gap early, clarify it and share the uncertainty upfront.  Without such clarity, execution becomes a battlefield of claims, arguments and wasted months.

Another example: a building contractor sees that the tender has payment milestones like “superstructure 50% complete”.  But what does “complete” mean in terms of payment vs scope, like Columns or Beams or Slabs or Plaster?  If the department had tested the payment logic through the eight‑index method, they would align milestones to real construction sequences like footing, plinth, frame, MEP and finishing. 

This is also why the astha digbandhanam lowers disputes.  Most construction disputes come from four things: unclear ground conditions, unclear scope, poorly allocated risk and wrong expectations.  The eight‑index method directly targets these four things.  When these uncertainties are clarified early, disputes fall automatically.  When a department shows that it understands this equation, contractors consider that department a “safe client”.  Contractors quote reasonable price as they trust the Department.

Finally, a simple but powerful analogy: preparing a tender is like tightening scaffolding before lifting a slab.  If the scaffolding is shaky, the entire structure is at risk.  If it’s strong, the job goes smoothly.  The astha digbandhanam is simply making sure the scaffolding of the project, i.e., “the contract”, is strong.  Contractors know this better than anyone else.

That’s why the recommendation is straightforward: government departments should adopt structured self‑assessment not because someone say so, but because contractors need tenders that don’t bleed them.  This system doesn’t just reduce disputes, rather, it saves money to all the stakeholders.

As the saying goes, walk in my shoes for a mile.  Then you will know.