Moving towards greater transparency in the award of tenders for various contract works relating to goods and services, the Government on Monday firmed up an agreement with the State Bank of India for implementing an e-payment facility on the official e-procurement portal.
In line with guidelines of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Delhi under the National e-Governance Project, the Memorandum of Understanding with SBI makes online transaction mandatory for goods, works and services costing Rs.5 lakh and above through the Government e-Procurement portal (www.pudutenders.gov.in).
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Hitherto, payment towards tender fee and Earnest Money Deposit (E.M.D) are collected from bidders through Demand Drafts by the Tendering Department. The e-payment mechanism would allow for the scanned copy of the DDs to be uploaded by the bidders in the e-tendering portal and the original DD is sent to the tendering Departments before tender closing date.
In order to ensure complete confidentiality in tendering process and to simplify the payment/refund procedure, payment towards Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) and tender fee shall be collected online by integrating the e-Procurement portal of this U.T with the payment gateway of State Bank of India (SBIePay).
After award of contract to the successful bidder (L1), the E.M.D of other bidders are returned and the EMD of successful bidder (L1) alone is retained till the completion of contract.
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At present SBIEPay is facilitating 30 banks and the list will be displayed in the e-Procurement portal. The bidders who have account in such banks can make payment of EMD and tender fee through internet banking.
The bidders are therefore advised to approach their bank to have internet banking facility for their respective bank to activate internet banking facility for their account.
The NEFT/RTGS mode of payment will be introduced in due course.
On successful implementation, the amount of E.M.D of all unsuccessful bidders shall be refunded automatically to the bidder’s account by the e-Procurement system after award of contract to the successful bidder.
Integration of portal
The National Informatics Centre and SBI are in the process of integrating the e-Procurement portal with SBI payment gateway.
The eProcurement Cell of Chief Vigilance Office, Chief Secretariat, Puducherry is providing training and hand-hold support to the bidders and to the stakeholder departments in this connection.
The Centre is monitoring and funding this Mission Mode Project (MMP) under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
The Ministry of Commerce had earlier reduced the threshold value of tender transactions that had to be mandatorily made through e-procurement from Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh.
At present SBIEPay is facilitating 30 banks and the list will be displayed in the e-Procurement portal