Student behind corruption exposé launches tender tracking portal

Ranchi student Sarthak Sidhant, who exposed irregularities in the tender process used by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to select a firm for the on-screen evaluation of Class 12 board exam answer sheets, has now created a website that aggregates data from approximately 16.6 crore files.

The files are related to government tenders, primarily covering information on government procurement.

Significantly, he has uploaded all this data to his portal, sarthaksiddhant.com, where anyone can view and download it.

Announcing it on X, Sarthak stated that he undertook this initiative keeping in mind that “transparency should be accessible to everyone.”

“These 16.6 crore files were sourced from the government's Central Public Procurement Portal (CPPP), which contains details of tenders from across the country,” Sarthak posted on X.

He further posted, “The country's procurement database is now publicly available to everyone. Any money the government spends goes through the tender process: a notice is issued, bids are invited, a winner is selected, and a contract is signed. Theoretically, this process acts as the immune system of public finance. In reality, however, this is precisely where large-scale procurement-related corruption quietly takes place.”

According to Sarthak, he collected this data from the CPP portal over the past two weeks.

He then organised it and made it available on his own portal, sarthaksiddhant.com. He has appealed to people, journalists and researchers to download the data and examine it.

He believes that as more people analyse records related to government expenditure and procurement, transparency and accountability within the system will improve.

"This initiative is a significant step towards strengthening public oversight," he said.

Sarthak explained that the Government of India's Central Public Procurement (CPP) portal is quite complex, making it difficult for the general public to download data from it.

Taking note of it, he designed his website to be simple and user-friendly.

“Here, people can download records without facing technical difficulties and conduct independent analyses. The database contains information regarding procurement by various government departments and institutions,” said Sarthak.

"A team of engineers is also being assembled to further improve the portal," he added.

Notably, Sarthak had previously raised questions regarding the CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system and the digital evaluation of Class 12 answer sheets.

He noticed a discrepancy in the marks after viewing the scanned copy of his own answer sheet.

Following this, he investigated the entire process.

His analysis was widely appreciated. Now, by making 1.66 crore records of government procurement public via the website, he has once again taken a major step towards transparency.


-The New Indian Express