Abolition of Enlistment of Contractors by Works Dte
Government of West Bengal
Finance Department
Audit Branch
No. 1177-F(Y) Dated: 28.02.2014
MEMORANDUM
It has come to the notice of the state Government that enlistment of contractors is coming in the way of the e-tender procedure, since in such cases scope of the tender gets limited only to those contractors who are enlisted in the Department. The updating of enlistment is also not done on a periodic basis, depriving new entrepreneurs from participating in development efforts of the State Government. Thus the system of enlistment is not only defeating the transparency introduced through e-tender, but also is hindering the interest of new contractors/ entrepreneurs. In the works departments, enlistment of contractors has been done on the basis of threshold value of the works which in many cases exceed Rs. 5 lakh, i.e., the base level of e-tender. Bringing financial propriety, fairness and transparency through open tender procedure has been engaging the attention of the State Government for some time past. Accordingly, e-tender for procurement of and above Rs. 5 lakh has been made mandatory by the State Government vide FD notification no. 6932-F(Y) dt. 29.8.13 read with notification no. 5400-F(Y) dt. 25.6.12.
Now, therefore, the Governor is pleased is issue the following instructions regarding contractors enlisted by the works departments of the State Government and availability of their tender documents:-
i. The Works Departments, i.e., PWD, I&WD, Housing, WRIDD, PHED, Sundarban Affairs Dptt (incl. Sunderban Development Board), P&RD (including PR institutions), MED, UD (including organization/ autonomous bodies under the dptt) shall abolish the system of enlistment of contractors with immediate effect, until further order. All works of and above Rs. 5 lakh for which e-tendering is mandatory would be awarded through open e-tender without any reservation for any particular class of contractors;
ii. The Works Departments will give effort to develop new contractors for works valued below Rs.5 lakh for which conventional procedure of open tender is adopted, say, by scaling down the qualifying experience and other technical criteria required for selection.
iii. All the works departments will ensure availability of tender documents free of cost in their departmental website even for works valued below the base level of e-tender;
iv. In case of e-tendering, EMD/ Bid security shall be collected as soft copy (scanned copies of the originals) for instruments (Cheques/Bank Draft/ Bank Guarantee, etc.) and in case of deposit of money it should be compulsorily deposited on-line by the bidders. The hard copy of the documents given online by the bidders should be submitted to the tender inviting authority in separate cover before tender opening date;
v. E-Tender documents should be made available only through the State Government e-tender portal, namely, https://wbtenders.gov.in free of cost.
Sd/-H.K. Dwivedi
Principal Secretary to the
Government of West Bengal.