This project aims to understand how to make it harder for local politicians to capture small-scale infrastructure projects. In the context of the bidding process for contracts under India’s flagship rural road construction programme, it examines three questions: (i) Is there political influence over the allocation of contracts? (ii) How do local politicians and officials use the bidding process to manipulate the allocation of road projects on behalf of specific contractors? (iii) How does the regulatory, political, and security environment affect the pool of bidders, the structure of the bid amounts, and the allocation of road contracts? A sub-question of particular importance is how collusion is affected by differences in bidding rules across states or funding agencies.

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