VIJAYAWADA: In a bid to ensure transparency in the tendering and procurement process, the State government has decided to overhaul the existing system by bringing in a new policy from January 1. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy directed the officials to draft a policy for procurement of all goods, works and services worth between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 100 crore for foolproof award and procurement of works.
In a review meeting on e-procurement on Wednesday, Jagan also instructed the officials concerned to further simplify the process of reverse tendering so that more agencies could participate, thus resulting in competitive bidding.
“The reverse tendering process needs to be strengthened and simplified so that at least 60 per cent of the participants, who filed bids, could take part in reverse tendering. This will help us in the competitive process, resulting in saving more public money. Then reverse tendering could be done in projects worth between 10 lakh and Rs 100 crore. Formulate a new policy to implement it from January 1,” the Chief Minister told the officials.
The policy will not just be applied to projects at State-level, but will also be followed in case of works at district-level too, the CM added. The information pertaining to the lowest bid has to be displayed in the public domain on e-procurement website for the people to see. “After displaying it for a week, reverse tendering can be done,” he suggested. For the projects over Rs 100 crore, the government had already constituted a judicial preview commission, which will scrutinise the documents before initiating the bidding process.
The Chief Minister also directed the officials to appoint an IAS officer especially to monitor the reverse tendering, judicial preview and other e-procurement related aspects. “The official will ensure that the information necessary for a judicial preview of tenders is given to the commission. Once the tender is sent to the commission, the official from the department concerned should explain the details to the chairperson,” he said.
When the officials informed the Chief Minister that each department was following different modalities for e-procurement, Jagan told them to make it uniform. “The uniform system of e-procurement should be used from November 1 by all the departments,” he said.
Special Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries and Secretaries from finance, services, school education and other departments were present in the review meeting.