Para 7.3.5 — CONSULT_MANUAL

7.4 Shortlisting – Risks and Mitigation

Risks Mitigation 1. Conflict of interest situations: It is possible that conflict of interest situations are not reported or declared by the participating consultants (or sometimes by members of the evaluation committee). These situations need to be dealt with by signing declarations in specified formats both at the EoI bid stage as also in the technical proposal (and by CEC members before undertaking the evaluation of proposals). 2. Qualifications leasing: Local Bidders with insufficient qualifications may show association with well qualified (foreign or local) consultants, just to use their qualification documents to get the contract. These well-qualified consultants lease their qualification – but do not or only minimally contribute experience or key personnel at the execution stage. This issue needs to be dealt with from the EoI stage by very clearly identifying the qualified applicant and putting on record/ contract the guaranteed contribution from the partner with qualification.

2. Only shortlisted (including provisionally shortlisted) Consultants shall be invited to participate in the following RFP process. Such shortlisting shall remain valid for a period specified in the REoI (six months from the date of declaration, if not so specified). It’s important that the RfP is issued as early as possible after shortlisting, since the qualification data on which shortlisting based, may tend to become outdated. In case such delay is more than 6 months, it would be better to reinvite EoI.

3. After the EoI Evaluation report is accepted by the competent authority, the name and address of the shortlisted consultant

(s) shall be published in the portal and notice board/ bulletin/website of the Procuring Entity. All Consultants shall be advised about shortlisting of their EOIs or otherwise without disclosing the comparative position of their EOIs with that of others. Shortlisted Consultants must not advertise or publish the same in any form without the prior written consent of the Procuring Entity.

4. Shortlisting a consultant is an administrative process and does not confer any legal or contractual rights on the shortlisted bidder. Since original documents/ certificates are not being called for and examined at this stage, all shortlisted shall be conditional upon final verification of such documents/ certificates during the RFP Process.

7.3.5 Declaration of Shortlist and issue of RfP: 1. EOIs of Consultants that succeed in the above evaluation shall be shortlisted. Provisionally shortlisted consultants will be informed of the condition

(s) that must be met before submitting their Proposal in the RFP process.

Chapter 8: RfP Evaluation and Award of Contract 8.1 Bid Evaluation Process 8.1.1 Importance of Evaluation of Bids The evaluation of tenders is one of the most significant areas of purchase management and the process must be transparent. All tenders are to be evaluated strictly based on the terms and conditions incorporated in the tender document and those stipulated by the bidders in their tenders. The Contracting Authority may include in the evaluation criteria in the Tender Document, quality, price, technical merit, aesthetic and functional characteristics, environmental characteristics, running costs, cost- effectiveness, after-sales service and technical assistance, delivery date and delivery period or period of completion etc. No criteria shall be used for evaluation of tenders that cannot be verified. No hearsay information or hitherto undeclared condition should be brought in while evaluating the tenders. Care should be taken that no tender enquiry condition (especially the significant/essential ones) should be overlooked/ relaxed while evaluating the tenders. The aim should be to ensure that no bidder gets undue advantage at the cost of other bidders and/or at the cost of Procuring Entity. The process of tender evaluation process is described in the subsequent paras in this chapter.