CPWD changes e-tendering process after 'malpractices' by its officers

The Central Public Works Department, or CPWD, the central government’s premier agency tasked with carrying out public sector works, on Thursday announced changes in its e-tendering processes.

The process was made more transparent after the CPWD vigilance unit found some of its officers “indulging in malpractices” in the e-tendering process while inviting bids through tenderwizard.com/CPWD portal.

The CPWD comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and constructs buildings, roads, flyovers, stadiums, border fending, border roads and also such structures like the parliament building of Afghanistan.

The changes were announced in an “office memorandum” issued on Thursday by its DDG (e-governance) RM Niranjan.

The memorandum listed several malpractices, including, “late authorization/publishing the tenders on the portal for a very short notice, that is a day before or even on the date of closing of the tender”.

Other malpractices found were “opening of financial bid along with technical bid for two/three envelope system” and “blocking/unblocking of cells of the schedule of quantity while publishing the tender”.

The memorandum stated that tenderwizard.com/CPWD was being modified to plug loopholes.

About late authorization and for avoiding ambiguity in terminology, now ‘date and time of authorization’ has been replaced with ‘date and time of publication’ of the tender.

To tackle the issue of late authorization, two distinct templates have been created, one for ‘standard notice tender’ and another for ‘short notice tender’, the memorandum stated.

Publicity period for ‘standard notice tender’ has been fixed at 7 to 14 days, and for ‘short notice tender’ a minimum of three days. For the latter, it would be mandatory to record the reasons for reduced duration of publicity.

To address the issue of opening of technical and financial bids simultaneously, new safeguards have been put in place.

Now, a minimum time gap of one day is to be kept between the opening of technical and financial bids.

Also, details of the ‘date and time of publication of the tender’ can be viewed by all, and not merely by those with privileged access.