The country's largest software export firm bidding in the Rs7.5 cr project by IndextB to build and manage a new portal for the Gujarat government's ambitious e-single window clearance, is facing allegation of material breach in the tender that opened on Friday.
According to sources in the know, the company officials, present at the bid had allegedly made changes in the tender document after the bids were opened. The matter relates to a tender floated by the Gujarat government for setting up and maintaining for five years a portal touted as e-single window for investors in the run up to Vibrant Gujarat 2011. The estimated cost of the whole project was close to Rs7.5 crore. According to sources, the companies that qualified to submit financial bids included Infinide in consortium with
Silver Touch, HCL Technologies, and state-owned PSU,
Gujarat Narmada Fertiliser Corporation (GNFC). The IT international major failed to submit the online bid because of 'technical reasons'. So, the company submitted an offline bid, to which other bidders consented.
The process of Friday started at 1pm with technical presentation held by all the competitors. The presentation concluded around 3.30pm and was followed by opening of financial bids, which were in two parts. In part one, amount for setting up the portal was to be quoted and in second the cost of maintaining the same for five years were to be presented. For the latter part, cost per quarter was to be given and total amount would have been 20 times of the same.
However, officials from the competing companies alleged that the officials of the major IT concern in question, striking out the term 'per quarter' and made entry for lump sum amount for part two as well after the opening of the bids. HCL Technologies did not qualify as the technical marks were low and therefore its bid was not included.
Officials for the companies, who had made a financial bid was against the rule as once the bid was open no changes should have been made in the document. However, no official was willing to come on record as the process is not yet complete and the committee has yet to announce its decision.
“When we protested against the same with the committee of government officials, they deferred their decision on the bid. They are already running a number of major IT projects for the state government,” one of the official from competitor's firm told.
The government officials denied commenting on the matter, while the officials of the noted IT firm were also unwilling to come on record. One of them, however, claimed that everything was done as per the set procedures. “We had quoted the lowest bid. So, the competitors are raffled, that's all,” the official said.
