The Hindu Business Line : Centre to examine single portal for e-procurement of materials

Paperless trading
E-procurement policy would be implemented in phases but without pruning its existing employees and all paper works at one go.

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Kolkata Feb. 24 The Union Government is examining creation of a single portal for e-procurement of materials for the consumption of all its departments and agencies.

Although top-level officials in the Government are reported to have expressed divergent views on the issue, available indications suggest that a single portal for the Government buying through e-procurement route will be in position shortly.

The objective of e-procurement is to eliminate "aberrations and malpractices" in the existing procurement procedure through "paper-based tendering".

Revealing this here on Saturday at a seminar on `E-procurement — A strategy for global sourcing', organised by the Indian Institute of Materials Management (IIMM), the Director (Vigilance) of Directorate General of Supply & Disposal (DGS&D), Mr M.C. Chakravorty, said that all Government department and agencies put together might buy materials worth about Rs 5 lakh crore per annum. The procurement was expected to be made through e-procurement route in order to maintain transparency of every purchase, he felt.

Referring to the procurement policy of DGS&D, which comes under the administrative control of the Union Ministry of Commerce, Mr Chakravorty said his organisation had already started buying from vendors through e-procurement from the 2000-05 fiscal. The organisation has stopped procurement through paper bidding at least about 20,000 items, while it has plans to buy all items through e-procurement in phases.

He said that procurement of materials by inviting tenders through advertisements in the media might be discontinued. Maximum that could be done is putting out a small advertisement in the media asking vendors to follow details in the e-procurement Web site.

However, he pointed out that DGS&D would implement e-procurement policy in phases but without pruning its existing employees and also without stopping all paper works at one go. In other words, he meant that his organisation was not considering complete paper-less trading an effective alternative at the present juncture.

The Director (Technical) of Coal India Ltd (CIL), Mr N.C. Jha, observed that conventional system of material procurement was cumbersome, resulting in delay in reaching the material to the users in time.

When the country has a target to achieve annual GDP growth rate between 8 per cent and 10 per cent, he felt that very effective material procurement system had to be introduced and rigidly followed to achieve the said target.

Mr Jha said that CIL has decided to buy material through e-procurement route. To start with, it would buy explosives and in phases, it would buy all capital goods and services through procurement.

He was of the view that e-procurement should not be confined to pricing of materials only, it should cover other aspects such as supply schedule, quality and maintenance of materials and machines supplied by vendors.