A State Level workshop on eProcurement was held on 1st and 2nd August 2024 as joint initiative of Finance Department, Govt. of West Bengal and National Informatics Centre. The Workshop was Inaugurated was Sh. Randhir Kumar, IAS, Secretary, Finance Department, Government of West Bengal in presence of Sh. R. Ramesh, Deputy Director General and Head e-Procurement Technical Team, Chennai, Dr. Shailesh Kumar Shrivastava, Deputy Director General and State Informatics Officer, NIC, West Bengal, Mrs. Usha Saxena, Senior Director(IT), e-Procurement Team, New Delhi. A team of officers from NIC, eProcurement, Chennai and NIC, e-Procurement, New Delhi also participated in two days workshop. The Valedictory function was addressed by Dr. Manoj Pant, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Finance Department, Govt. of West Bengal. The programme was well co-ordinated by e-Procurement Co-ordinator Sh. Amit Mazumder, Senior Director (IT) and Officers of Finance Deoartment, Govt of West Bengal. Technical Support was extended by Technical HelpDesk Team of e-Procurement, West Bengal.

The workshop was a major event in the journey of GePNIC® and the Government of West Bengal that was first of its kind in the country. Day 1 was planned for senior officers, decision makers across various departments that was attended to the full capacity with active participation of the departments represented by their senior officers.

Day 1 : Major takeaways –

      1. Overview of various policies, best practices was shared.
      2. Feature and functionalities already available in portal which is not being used in WB was explained.
          a. Auto extension of tenders
          b. Tender cum Auction – Forward and Reverse
          c. Global tenders with Multi currency options
          d. Quality and Cost based Selection
          e. Two Stage tendering
          f. Non Disclosure Agreement
          g. Auctions – Forward and Reverse
          h. Shortfall documents
               i. State Public Procurement Portal
               ii. Linking of Budget and expenditure
               iii. Nutshell view of all procurements in state
               iv. Appeal Mechanism

Day 2 : Working level officials across various departments.

       1. Marking of tenders with Legal issues
       2. Highlighted Issues like –
           a. Asking NIT again along with Bid document
           b. First call , second call , retender, cancel tender
           c. To be Opened tenders, EMD not getting returned to Bidder
           d. Uploading huge size documents
       3. Healthy practices to be adopted - Auditor Role, Clarifications, delayed Start of Bid submission date/time
       4. Answered all queries of participants