Para 5.6 — WORKS_MANUAL

Example 2: Maximum days for award of contract by CPWD

Procuring Officer Limit of procurement (in Rs. crore) Maximum days for decision for award of contract Assistant Engineer 0.06 10 days Executive Engineer 1.00 15 days Superintending Engineer 10.00 30 days Chief Engineer 30.00 45 days Additional Director General and above More than 30.00 60 days

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 Bid Documents. Every official in the chain of the procurement operation is accountable for taking action 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). 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.

ii) It has been also noted that delay in decision making after opening of certain tenders is taking place because the Tender Committee (TC), wherever in place, are not meeting frequently. In order to ensure that most of the tenders are decided as per the new timelines as indicated in para above, (to be formally fixed individually by the concerned Ministries/Departments), it has been decided that the Ministries/Departments may notify at least one day of every week for the meeting of TC. Instructions may be issued by concerned organisation that on such pre-fixed days, no member of the TC shall normally take leave or proceed on tour etc.

iii) After the decision has been taken by the competent authority (TC or individual procuring officer) on the tender, such decision and the minutes of the TC (wherever applicable), except the portion that may divulge third party technical/ commercial confidential information, should be uploaded on the Central Public Procurement portal (CPPP) within three working days for greater transparency. These details shall also be uploaded on e-procurement portal or the website of the concerned Ministry/ Department/ CPSU within three working days.

5.6 Deliberations by the Tender Committee 5.6.1 Timely Processing of Tenders i) Delays in finalising procurement deprive the public of the intended benefits and results in lost revenues and cost over-run. Currently, the Ministries/Departments are generally awarding the contracts in 90 days from the date of tender opening for which the Ministries/Departments are asking for a validity of offer by the contractors for 90 days. In order to further shorten the period for award of contract, the Ministries/Departments should try to shorten the procurement decision period to 60 days from the date of opening of the tenders in most of the cases. Only in exceptional cases, like two packet/ two stage bidding the period may be extended. However, in no case this time period should exceed 75 days. The Ministries/ Departments may draw guidance from the arrangements made by CPWD, where the validity of tenders has been fixed in the following manner:-