Roads & Bridges Deptt launches e-procurement service

ANUSHA GURUNG
GANGTOK, 10 Sept: The Roads and Bridges Department launched an e-procurement service on the Sikkim Government web portal today.
Roads & Bridges Secretary GS Sharma launched the service at the premises of Roads and Bridges Department. E-Submission Tender system of Sikkim enables people to download the tender schedule free of cost and submit the bids online through this portal.
This system will be implemented in all other departments gradually, said the Secretary.
Principal Chief Engineer cum Secretary Roads and Bridges Department, Mr Sharma also published the first tender today. He thanked the National Informatics Centre [NIC] and IT for their support and for providing technical experts for the project.
Project Director ADB Projects cum Nodal Officer E-procurement Roads and Bridges Department, PK Bhujel said that the e-tendering process facilitates or enhances confidentiality and added that this system can be used anywhere in any part of India.
“This service ensures authenticity and is hassle-free. One can put in tenders sitting at home and get all the information as well”, said Mr Bhujel.
A complete package which consists of Bid opening, Bid evaluation and pre-bid meetings with the contractors is called e-procurement.
The website is www.sikkimtender.gov.in. and any one can visit the site from today itself.
The mechanism is digital, a certifying company named National Informative Centre Certified Agency [NIICA] issues a Digital Signature Certificate [DSC], without this DSC one cannot access or login. Every department, user and contractor is issued with the login ID and password to go through the site.
NIC Director, Birendra Chettri said that more than one and a half lakh tenders have been submitted and any tender which is above 3 crore will be posted in the website.
Adding further Mr Chettri said that the process of bidding online is encrypted and therefore confidentiality is assured.
“With the help of the team of NIC, Secretary Roads and Bridges and all the staff we completed this project in a short span of time”, added Mr Chettri.
Also present were the Scientific Officer [NIC] Abhijit Roy, Assistant Engineer Project [R&BD] Sonam Dadul, Assistant Engineer e-procurement [R&BD] Kamal Rasaily, PCE Cum Secretary [R&BD] GS Sharma, Principal Director [IT] R Verma and Additional Chief Engineer South/West [R&BD] RK Pariyar.