India’s public procurement in numbers: 70,000 tenders in three months

India publishes more public tenders than any other country in our database. Between August and mid-November 2026 FreeTender collected 70,911 Indian notices, 16% of everything we collected worldwide, from the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), the Central Public Procurement Portal, more than twenty state portals and the procurement sites of the big public sector undertakings. Here is what they show.

Where Indian tenders are published

GeM alone accounts for a quarter of the Indian notices we see. The rest is spread across many portals, and no single state portal carries more than about 4%. That fragmentation is the main practical problem for an Indian bidder: a contractor who only watches GeM, or only their home state, misses most of the market.

What India buys

• Construction and infrastructure dominate at 41% of all Indian notices (29,343): roads, buildings, repairs, water lines and civil works.
• Energy and power is second at 10% (7,081), driven by NTPC, Coal India, power distribution companies and state electricity boards.
• Manufacturing and supply follows at 7%, then defence and security at 4%. Nine in ten defence notices come through GeM (2,813 of 3,084).
• Transport and logistics, IT and telecom, consulting services and healthcare each account for 3–4%.

GeM has a very different mix from the state portals. Its largest categories are manufactured goods and supply (17% of GeM bids), defence and security (16%), transport and logistics (8%) and IT (7%). Construction is barely present on GeM (2%), because works contracts still go through the e-procurement portals.

How much time you get

• The median Indian bid window is 11 days, against 16 days worldwide.
• On the state and central e-procurement portals, 17% of tenders close within a week.
• GeM is more predictable: only 5% close within a week, but 60% close within two weeks and fewer than 1% stay open longer than a month.

Most contracts are small, which is good news for MSMEs

Where a value is declared, the median Indian construction tender is about ₹20 lakh (24,731 notices with a value), and the median energy and power tender about ₹9.5 lakh. The headline mega-projects exist, but the typical Indian public contract is a local job well within the reach of a small contractor or supplier, especially with the exemptions and preferences available to Micro and Small Enterprises.

What this means for Indian bidders

• Watch several portals, not one. GeM, CPPP and the portals of the states you work in at the very least, plus PSUs in your sector.
• Keep your GeM catalogue and portal registrations current. With 11-day windows there is no time to register after you find a tender.
• Use your MSE status. See MSME benefits in Indian public procurement and GeM explained.

Browse all open tenders in India, or the latest India market report.