India, Nov. 9 -- India's digital ambitions are soaring, from building digital public infrastructure to digitizing several government processes and administrative functions. Across some of our high-profile e-governance projects, such as the GST Network and the MCA21 company filing system, which involve specific technology platforms, the result is the same: delays & cost overruns, duplicate systems, multiple vendors, and piling technical debt. The problem is not a lack of ambition or talent. The real obstacle is our outdated procurement rules that treat technology the same way as cement and steel.

The Procurement Trap

The first and most fundamental issue is policy fragmentation. At the horizontal level, India's procurement framework remai...