New Delhi, Sep 15 (IANS): Government tenders worth Rs 15,000 crore had to be cancelled as they were highly discriminatory against Indian companies, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said on Friday.

Far from preferential market access, local companies do not even have a level playing field in the country and the government is busy addressing it, Abhishek said.

Speaking at the 5th National Forum on "Public Affairs: The New Paradigm", hosted by the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI), an association of public affairs professionals, Abhishek said the tenders were re-issued after making changes to ensure fair play.

"There are a whole lot of government departments and PSUs that were discriminating against Indian companies by having highly discriminatory tender conditions," he said.

Apart from the "Make in India" initiative, the government brought in public procurement order last year to promote manufacturing of goods and services locally. Till then, the country had no policy on this except those by Electronics and Telecom departments.

"We have now more and more industries complaining to us, to point out to us, how the tender conditions are completely crazy. Nobody can justify it," he said and added that the government is addressing these before moving on to the next stage of preferential market access.

"We have got tenders of more than Rs 15,000 crore by various government departments cancelled and they are to be re-tendered because the conditions were completely unacceptable. Indian industry at least needs level playing field," he said.

The official said that the Indian industry needs to integrate with global and regional value chains. "For this, we have to be competitive and improve our export competitiveness," he said.