An investigation conducted by The Indian Express, using records obtained through the Right To Information (RTI) Act, has revealed that 16 ministries and departments within the Union government have outsourced several critical assignments related to various aspects of governance to prominent multinational consultancy firms.
Between April 2017 and June 2022, the Big Four – Pricewater-houseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, Ernst & Young Global Limited and KPMG International Limited – and US-based McKinsey & Company, bagged at least 308 consultancy assignments worth nearly Rs 500 crore from various government ministries, departments and organisations, the newspaper reported, citing RTI records.
There are 59 ministries in the Union government.
The daily has named all the 16 departments/ ministries and about 50 organisations under their administration that consulted any of the five global consultants. These are Petroleum and Natural Gas; Rural Development; Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances; Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade; Coal; Electronics and Information Technology; Health and Family Welfare; Skill Development and Entrepreneurship; Defence; Civil Aviation; Public Enterprises; Non-conventional Energy Resources; Power; Road Transport and Highways; Environment, Forest and Climate Change; and Tourism.
“And these are just a few pixels of the big picture – RTI records made available to The Indian Express are mainly from government wings in the petroleum and power sectors,” it added.
According to the RTI records, PwC was the biggest beneficiary, getting at least 92 contracts for over Rs 156 crore between 2017 and 2022. Deloitte got 59 assignments worth over Rs 130.13 crore. However, the amounts involved in four of those contracts were not provided, the report noted.
Similarly, E&Y bagged as many as 87 contracts for Rs 88.05 crore, with amounts not provided for five of them, the report said.
KPMG got 66 contracts worth Rs 68.46 crore, without any data provided on amounts for five of them. And McKinsey got three contracts for Rs 50.09 crore, it said.
The petroleum sector received the highest number of assignments, valued at over Rs 170 crore, from the Ministry of Petroleum and four of its PSUs, while nine organisations under the power ministry outsourced assignments worth Rs 166.41 crore to multinational consultancies.
The Indian Express mentioned that state-owned Indian Oil Corporation declined to provide the data citing the “trade secret” clause of the RTI Act.
The roster of ministries includes the Ministry of Tourism and NITI Aayog. Within the Ministry of Tourism, a minimum of Rs 18 crore worth of work was awarded to E&Y alone as part of its Swadesh Darshan initiative. Meanwhile, NITI Aayog outsourced seven assignments, amounting to Rs 17.43 crore, between 2019 and 2021 for the “evaluation of centrally sponsored schemes”.
Starting in 2015, several news reports have highlighted the Narendra Modi government’s practice of engaging consultants for initiatives like Make in India, Digital India, smart cities, Swachh Bharat, and skill development.
In July 2015, the Economic Times had reported, quoting senior consultants, that these consultancies were paid around Rs 500 crore in fees in the year ended March. And they said that in a year’s time, total revenue from government engagements could rise to Rs 750 crore.
Industry trackers told the newspaper that consultants were being roped in at various stages for almost all government projects. And this is happening at both the state and the central level.
In June 2023, the Ken reported how the government roped in these consulting titans to “reshape the pillars of its digitisation crusade”. It also indicates, per the report, that the government is on the brink of relinquishing its hold.
(Courtesy: The Wire.)
