Para 8.2.3 — CONSULT_MANUAL

8.2.4 Independence, Impartiality, Confidentiality and ‘No Conflict of Interest’ at all Stages of Evaluation of Bids 1. Members of the CEC should not have any conflict of interest and should not directly engage in any communication with short-listed firms from the date of their appointment to the date on which the contract is awarded.

2. In cases where the CA does not agree with the majority or unanimous recommendations of the CEC, he should record his views and, if possible, firstly send it back to CEC to reconsider along the lines of the tender accepting authority’s views. However, if the CEC, after considering the views of the CA, sticks to its own earlier recommendations, the CA can finally decide as deemed fit, duly recording detailed reasons. He will be responsible for such decisions. However, such situations should be rare.

2. Information relating to evaluation of tenders and the Tender Committee’s (TC’s) deliberations should be confidential and not be shared with persons not officially connected with the process, until the award of contract is notified to the successful firm, except that after technical evaluation, the overall technical score shall be informed to all consultants for each criterion or sub-criterion, if any, as required in the Tender document. Under no circumstances, Tender file or confidential information contained therein shall be provided for scrutiny or for decision to any person/ office who are not involved in decision making.

3. All technical, commercial and finance officials who have contributed to the technocommercial or financial evaluation of bids, even though they may not be part of the CEC should deal with the procurement in an independent, impartial manner and should have no conflict of interest with any of the bidder involved in the procurement. They should also maintain confidentiality of the information processed during the evaluation process and not allow it to reach any unauthorised person. They should sign a declaration at the end of their reports/notings stating that, “I declare that I have no conflict of interest with any of the bidder in this tender.” CEC members may also make such a declaration at the end of their reports.

8.2.3 Handling Dissent among Tender Committee 1. All members of the CEC should resolve their differences through personal discussions instead of making to and fro references in writing. In cases where it is not possible to come to a consensus and differences persist amongst CEC members, the reasons for dissent of a member should be recorded in a balanced manner along with the majority’s views on the dissent note. The final recommendations should be that of the majority view. However, such situations should be rare. The Competent Authority (CA) can overrule such dissent notes after recording reasons for doing so clearly. His decision would be final.

Table 3. Indicative time schedule

8.2.5 Timely Processing of Tenders: 1. Delays in finalising procurement deprive the public of the intended benefits and results in lost revenues and cost over-run. To enable timely decision making, complete Time schedule of finalising the Tender process from the date of issuing the tender to date of issuing the contract, should be published in the Tender Documents. Every official in the chain of the procurement operation is accountable for acting in a specified time so that the tender is finalised on time. Any deviation from the schedule may be monitored and explained, by way of system of Management Reporting (Appendix 4 and 5 of ‘Manual for Procurement of Goods, 2024’). As a check, the proposed schedule of tender process may be printed on the inside cover of the Procurement File, where actual date of completion of various stages may be recorded. The suggestive time schedule in Table 3 is a guideline for finalising contracts against various modes of procurements.

Mode of Procurement Indigenous Imported 1 Open tender/ (e-tendering) 45 days 60 days 2 Procurement through registered vendors/ (Special) limited tenders 30 days 45 days 3 Proprietary basis/nomination basis 21days 30 days

4. During the processing of the tender, all references/grievances/ complaints/ directives/ request for information from any sources including higher level officials/ authorities within the Ministry or from outside may be forwarded to the CEC/Convener of CEC for its examination on merits and action as considered necessary, maintaining independence, impartiality, confidentiality and ‘No Conflict of Interest.’ An interim reply may be provided that the Tender is still under consideration and that final response would be given after the declaration of the award of contract.

2. This time schedule is only indicative, and the schedule shall be subject to change based on the nature of requirements, sourcing, sample evaluation, site visit/pre-bid meeting with prospective bidders and Government, guidelines, and so on.