Andhra fails to 'e-procure' other states for JV

The proposal to convert the Andhra Pradesh government's 'e-procurement' project into a joint venture with other interested state governments has been dropped, as the other states are not keen on it.

"With the government dropping the idea of a joint venture, the e-procurement platform will remain with the C1 India Ltd, which will continue to act as an application service provider (ASP)," K Bhikshapathi, project manager, e-procurement, Government of Andhra Pradesh, told Business Standard.

The e-procurement software, which has been developed by C1 India Limited in association with the state government's IT department, has been put into use from the last fiscal.

The tenders for works associated with various departments like irrigation, roads and buildings costing around Rs 2,800 crore were processed through the e-procurement platform during the first year.

C1 India Ltd receives 0.24 per cent on the total value of each project as transaction fees when the contract has been awarded, besides charging Rs 4,500 as hosting fees for each tender.

With the existing contract with C1 India for the e-procurement platform expiring on September 20, 2004, and the government favouring the ASP model, officials have been preparing a new agreement in consultation with the service provider.

According to Bhikshapathi, the 'transaction fee' would be drastically lowered as a group of secretaries constituted by the government was already working on an alternative formula.

Though several states, including the central government had evinced keen interest on the e-procurement format adopted by the state government, none of them have come forward to accept the offer of forming a joint venture.

"The Karnataka government is going ahead with the development of their own e-procurement platform. The Union government's National Informatics Centre (NIC) has also issued notification inviting tenders on developing a similar software recently. This development has prompted the state government to go in for an ASP model," Bikshapathi said. Incidentally, C1 India is also said to be in the fray for the NIC project.

Meanwhile, joining the e-procurement bandwagon during the current financial year, the state police housing corporation has issued tender notification for 17 works with a total outlay of Rs 108 crore to be processed through the e-procurement platform.

The state animal husbandry department also placed its order on the e-procurement, for drugs worth nearly Rs 2 crore, according to officials.

All the municipal corporations, urban development authorities in the state are expected to begin transactions on the e-procurement platform from the current year. As per the the orders (GO MS NO 20) issued by the previous government, all the works costing Rs 10 lakh and above and goods worth Rs 5 lakh and above should be handled through the e-procurement platform.

Officials said that the software for the new features of e-procurement such as automatic bid evaluation is ready. "We are waiting for the digital signatures of all the contractors to be available to put the auto bid evaluation software into effective use," he said.

The Andhra Pradesh Technology Services Corporation (APTS) has been appointed as the nodal agency to get the digital signatures prepared and certified by the competent firms. This is expected to take one more month before the state government's e-procurement software becomes fully automatic., told Business Standard.