Advertisment

Kerala intros e-payment facility in tendering process

author-image
Abhigna
New Update

THIRUVANANTHPURAM, INDIA: If Punjab claims to be the first state in the country to have introduced Smart Card facility for driving licences and certificates for registration of vehicles, Kerala too can now claim to be the first state in the country to have implemented the e-payment facility in its tendering processes.

Advertisment

The entire payment system in the tendering process has been enabled online. "Kerala has become the first State in the country to implement the e-payment facility in tendering processes, ensuring total confidentiality and transparency in the business transactions and thus closing the door to corruption," a Hindu Report quoted Kerala's Finance Minister K.M. Mani, as saying.

The implementation agencies for this e-governance project are Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM), National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the State Bank of Travancore. As of now, very few Departments have joined the e-procurement system despite Government's order to all Departments to route tenders above Rs. 25 lakh through the e-procurement system after March 31, 2013.

The State Government of Kerala aims to extend the e-payment facility to other departments to ensure transparency in government transactions. The report on Hindu quoted Kerala's Industries Minister, P.K. Kunhalikkutty, saying, "The e-procurement project had been very efficient and had succeeded in getting rid of a lot of red tapes and delays and achieving efficiency. The application could be extended to other areas of governance as well so that the entire government administration was made more efficient."

The e-procurement system that was launched in December 2011, was first adopted by The Public Works Department (PWD) to publish an on-line tender. As of now, the e-procurement system has handled 4,346 tenders worth over Rs. 2,300 crore. Currently, all payments towards tender document fees and Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) of tenders published through e-procurement gateway are received as Demand Drafts.

As the payment mechanism for tenders is integrated with the e-procurement system so that bidders can make the tender document fee and EMD Payments directly online. Till the opening of bids, the amount will be received through the State Bank of Travancore account. Unsuccessful bidders' EMDs will be refunded online to bank accounts at various stages of tender evaluation.