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Now, you can bid for BMC tenders online ......Sharad Vyas I TNN
Mumbai: Expect more transparency in BMC’s tendering process from now.
On Wednesday, the civic body, as part of a pilot project, will float its first tender online and vendors from across the country will be able to bid on the web. This will hopefully put an end to “conspiracies to rig contracts worth crores of rupees by a handful of contractors’’. The project is being launched as part of its e-governance plan.
A couple of years ago, the BMC had appointed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to provide the blueprint and oversee the implementation of its e-governance project. The Rs 40-crore plan is being implemented through SAP by Siemens, which will remain in charge of maintaining it for the next five years.
The first of the e-tenders will be floated for the purchase of monsoon kits for students in civic schools. The vendors bidding for it will get a password, following which they will be able to open a web page and fill in the forms.
“The process will be so guarded that a vendor will not know who his competitors are. This will put an end to any posssible conspiracy or rigging,’’ said a senior civic official. Railways and airport authorities have already started inviting bids online.
Thanks to a non-competitive tender process, the BMC ends up receiving lower quality goods or services, said officials. According to civic data, as many as 2,000 tenders are floated every year for various infrastructure and civic projects. But only a cartel of contractors invariably collude to inflate the cost of a wide range of contracts, officials said.
“Bidding online is always easier than the manual one, which involves lots of paperwork. However, this may pose a problem for those who are not comfortable with computers. I don’t think civic contracts are rigged but definitely, the new process will bring in more transparency,’’ said Jose Jacob, a well-known contractor.
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