Neither proves anything on its own - but both are recognised risk signals. Short bidding windows favour insiders who already know a tender is coming; values bunched just below approval limits can signal contracts split or sized to dodge scrutiny.
Days between a tender opening for bids and closing. Very short windows make it hard for new entrants to respond - an incumbent advantage.
% of tenders giving under 7 days.
Histogram of awarded values (Rs 0 to 2 crore, in Rs 1 lakh bins). Common approval/scrutiny limits are marked. Spikes just below a line can indicate contracts sized to stay under it. Read as directional - published values are inconsistent.
A genuinely competitive bid almost never comes out to an exact round number. So when a lot of awards land on exactly a round lakh or a round crore, it points to negotiated or estimated pricing rather than price competition.
Fair-procurement norms say that if a tender names a specific brand or model, it should add "or equivalent" so rivals can compete. Tenders that name a brand and omit that phrase quietly narrow the field. This is an experimental, keyword-based flag. We only scan the short description field, not the attached tender documents where most specifications actually live - so the number below is a visible floor, not the full rate.
Matching winning companies to the MCA registry surfaces a sharp flag: award records that went to companies now marked struck-off, dormant, dissolved or amalgamated. The registry status is current, so a strike-off may post-date the award - a flag to investigate, not proof. Registered companies only.