e-Payment of Tender Fees and Contract Award Data Publication in the Assam e-Tendering system

e-Payment of Tender Fees and Contract Award Data Publication in the Assam e-Tendering system

The State of Assam is a key economy in the North Eastern part of India and it is referred as the “Gateway to the North East”. As a key economy in the North Eastern region, Assam advertises a large number of tenders. During the financial year 2023-24, the government agencies in Assam published 60178 tenders. This article explains key information pertaining to online fee payment and publication of contract award details about the tenders in Assam. 

e-Payment of Tender Processing Fee and Earnest Money Deposit (EMD)

Prior to implementation of the e-Tendering system, government agencies sold printed copies of tender documents for a fee. The bidders interested in bidding for a tender need to pay the tender fee to obtain a copy of the tender. In many cases, after purchasing the tender, the bidders realize that the terms and conditions specified in the tender do not suit them. This caused dissatisfaction among the bidders because they paid for the tender document from which they did not receive benefits. With the emergence of electronic tender or e-Tender, government agencies allowed the bidders to freely download the tender. However, to address the funds required for maintenance and upgradation of the e-Tendering system, the government agencies required the bidders to pay a tender processing fees. This fund usually is centrally collected by the agency managing the e-Tendering system. In Assam, the collection of tender processing fee was introduced vide an official memorandum dated 21st August 2019. In this order, the government enforced replacement of the tender fee collection with the tender processing fees. The bidders are required to pay a fee of 0.02% of the estimated value of the tender capped at INR 20,000 for tenders up to INR 50 Crores. For tenders with an estimated value exceeding INR 50 crores, tender processing fees is computed at 0.02% with an upper cap of INR 30,000. The bidders can make the tender processing fee payment either using the State Bank Multi Option Payment System (SBMOPS) or using the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) / Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system established by the Reserve Bank of India. In the same order, it is confirmed that the bidders are required to pay the EMD using SBMOPS or the NEFT and RTGS methods. 

Uploading Contract Award Details in the e-Tendering Portal

Almost all the procurement by government agencies in India is done using the e-Tendering method. Except for the procurement processed using the Government e-Marketplace (GEM) and a few other portals, the functional scope of the online procurement is limited to e-Tendering. It is noted that few States such as Karnataka have taken the initiative to expand the functional coverage to include online contract management as well. In the next few years, it is expected that the functionality of the existing e-Tendering systems will get extended to include online contract management. As on date though, in e-Tendering systems where the online contract management is not implemented, the procurement process handled online in the system extends only up to awarding the contract. Though the contract award functionality is available in the software, many government agencies use the e-Tendering system only until the financial bid opening date. After that, many contracting authorities tend to complete the contract award process in the traditional manual method and not process it online in the e-Tendering system. Due to this, the status of the procurement registered in the e-Tendering system is not correctly updated. Also, the other bidders which participated in a tender and the general public are unable to view the contract award details.To address this gap, the government of Assam issue an official memorandum dated 5th May 2018, mandating all agencies using the e-Tendering system to upload their contract documents online at https://assamtenders.gov.in/ within 30 days of the contract award. This order is a key measure taken by the Assam government to enhance transparency in government procurement.