Beyond the Lowest Bidder: A Multi-Criteria Framework for EPC Bid Evaluation

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_16How to use a DOI?

Keywords

EPC Projects; Bid EVALUATION; Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM); Economically Most Advantageous Tender

Abstract

Over the past ten years, infrastructure spending in India has increased unlike any other time in the country driven by unprecedented government spending. The government has augmented investments two times and more, and even capital spending by the Union government itself continued to rise as compared to ₹4.4 lakh crore in FY2020 to more than ₹11 lakh crore in FY2024. The release of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) of estimated expenditure ₹111 lakh crore in FY2020-2025, has provided a systematic roadmap. In this estimated expenditure, the Engineering, Close to 85 percent of expenditure is represented by Procurement, and Construction (EPC) projects highlighting the importance of the EPC project deliveries in the Indian infrastructural context. Despite this dynamism, as per the 456th flash report on central sector projects (Rs.150 crore and above) dated October, 2023, nearly 47 percent of 1,788 projects in the central sector are lagging, slippage on average of 37 months, and cost overruns have risen to above 17.4, or more than ₹4.31 trillion. One of the causes of such inefficiencies is the continuous reliance on the lowest-bidder (L1) system of evaluation, where ability is not considered. This route led to the lack of technical competence, inability to deliver, and never-ending conflicts in contracts. To eliminate these restrictions, this study suggests a shift to a multi-criteria bid assessment framework. This model proposes a shift from the L1 approach to an Economically Most Advantageous Tender (EMAT) framework, which holistically evaluates bids based on multiple criteria including contractor ability, project delivery capabilities, and quality performance.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - O. Mohith Reddy
AU  - M. Rohith Reddy
AU  - M. Lakshmi Narayana Reddy
AU  - R. Prahlad
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/26
TI  - Beyond the Lowest Bidder: A Multi-Criteria Framework for EPC Bid Evaluation
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Infrastructure Development and Sustainability (ICIDS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 279
EP  - 303
SN  - 3005-155X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_16
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_16
ID  - Reddy2026
ER  -