Para 4.6 — WORKS_MANUAL

4.7 Amendment of Tender Documents At any time prior to the date of submission of bids, the Procuring Entity may, whether at his own initiative or in response to a clarification sought by a prospective bidder, amend bid documents by issuing a corrigendum. The corrigendum shall be notified in writing by registered post/ speed post/ courier/ email to all known prospective bidders and shall be published on CPPP. Copies of such amendments are also to be prominently attached in the unsold sets of the tender documents (which are available for sale, if any), including the tender documents uploaded on the website. When the amendment/ modification changes the requirement significantly and/ or when there is not much time left for the tenderers to respond to such amendments, it is better to prepare a revised tender and the time and date of submission of tenders are also to be extended suitably. Depending on the situation, such an amendment may also need fresh publication adopting the same procedure as for publication of the original tender enquiry. This is very critical as the amendment may lead to any new bidder meeting the qualifying criteria and publicity is required to ensure a level playing field.

4.8 Pre-bid Conference In case of turnkey contract

(s) or contract

(s) of special nature for procurement of sophisticated and costly work/ services/ equipment or wherever felt necessary, a suitable provision is to be kept in the bidding documents for inviting the bidders or their official representatives to attend one or more pre-bid conference at a specified place and time, for clarifying issues and clearing doubts, if any, about the specifications/ Terms of Reference and other allied technical/ commercial details of the work, services, plant, equipment and machinery etc.

4.6 Clarification of Tender Documents A prospective bidder requiring clarification on the tender documents may notify the Procuring Entity in writing, well before the due date of submission of bids, and a response must be sent in writing regarding the clarifications sought prior to the date of opening of the tenders. Copies of the query of any bidder and clarification issued must be sent to all prospective bidders who have received the tender documents. There shall be no asymmetry of information as regard to any bidder.

Bidders should be asked to submit written queries in advance of the conference. After the conference, Minutes of the pre-bid meeting including all the questions and replies shall be prepared and approved by the competent authority. In order to bring clarity to replies, all questions/ answers and needed amendments should be merged in the sequence of clauses in the bidding document. It is a good practice to consolidate all queries received either as part of pre-bid meeting or just after issuing bidding documents and deal with in a comprehensive way. Minutes of the meeting, including the text of the questions raised and the responses given, shall be transmitted without delay to all purchasers of the bidding documents. The techno-commercial requirements may be revised if considered necessary by way of issue of a formal corrigendum (mere minutes of the meeting of pre-bid conference would not suffice) and shared with all the bidders who purchase or have purchased the bid documents. These pre-bid minutes shall be published along with the bid documents on the appropriate website including CPPP. After the issue of clarifications/ modifications consequent to the pre-bid meeting, at least two clear weeks should be given for submission of bids.