Employer's Requirements and Design Responsibility under EPC

In a turnkey contract the Employer stops buying a design and starts buying a description of one, and the Employer's Requirements become the only document that says what the finished asset must do. This report reads three standard EPC forms in wide use in India — the Planning Commission Model EPC Agreement (2014), the MoRTH/NHAI Standard EPC Agreement (May 2022) and the CPWD General Conditions of Contract 2024 for EPC Projects — against the question every client eventually asks: if the design fails, who pays. The answer is narrower than most Employers assume, because none imposes a fitness-for-purpose obligation, two expressly exclude implied warranties, and all three provide that the Employer's own checking of the contractor's work — review, approval, inspection or testing — changes nothing.

Part of AECS Research Global's publications programme — drawing on ARG's work across cost management, EPC advisory and integrated project delivery. Download the full report below.