Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT) in association with Directorate General of Supplies & Disposal (DGS&D), Ministry of Commerce, organised a one day seminar where the industry body pointed out the key issues and challenges concerned with the public procurement process. MAIT adjures the government to include ERV for all DGS&D contracts and also to work on the guidelines of the rate contracts for cloud and managed services.
Speaking during the discussion, Mr. Sathya Narayan Mohanthy, Director General, DGS&D, said, “To bring in improvement in the system, we at DGS&D are trying to bring new schemes like deemed registration and tatkal scheme. Essentially, we are welcoming more firms to the DGS&D system to register and do their business. We require large number of bids cutting across geographies.
Stressing upon the duration of the procurement, Mr. Mohanthy said, “It is notified in the manual that the procurement duration would be 200 days. We are in the process of compressing it to 2- 3 months; 2 months for the already existing items and 3 months for the new products.
Speaking on the occasion, J V Ramamurthy, President, MAIT, said, “It is important to include the exchange rate variation clause in the procurement contracts. Above all there is a need to bring in operational excellence in the process which would benefit the companies, as well as the respective departments. The multistep payment process, with a long cycle time, can also be made electronic.
MAIT, the apex body actively representing ICT Manufacturing, Training, IT, Design, R&D and associated services sector and the central procurement wing of Ministry of Commerce, DGS&D aimed to understand and strengthen mechanisms for creating an enabling environment for public procurement in India. The event created a platform for key stakeholders from the government and industry captains from the top digital economy companies of India to interact on policy mechanisms that can strengthen the India’s public procurement process.
This event was the first of its kind wherein the central procurement wing of Ministry of Commerce, DGS&D has formally partnered with an industry association to understand and strengthen the mechanisms for creating and enabling an environment for public procurement in India.
