NCR awards 38 contracts through e-auction, earned income of Rs2.66 crore

To bring more transparency, North Central Railways (NCR) has switched over to e auctioning and so far awarded 38 contracts. These contracts range from parcel leasing, pay and use toilets, parking, commercial publicity, ATM, etc which in turn has earned an income of over ₹2.66 crore for the railways.

“Out of 678 assets, 406 assets were auctioned and 10 contracts were allotted through e-auction by Prayagraj Division of NCR, which include one parking, 3 pay and use toilets and 6 commercial advertisement related contracts,” said chief public relations officer (CPRO) of NCR Shivam Sharma.

Out of these, contracts of parking at Sonbhadra, pay and use toilets at Kanpur, Etawah and Tundla and commercial advertisements at Prayagraj Junction, Kanpur Central, Naini, Prayagraj Chheoki, Khurja and Govindpuri stations were awarded through e-auction, with an annual total earning of about ₹67 lakhs. A total Revenue of ₹2.29 crore is likely to be received by Prayagraj Division during the complete contract period, he added.

Similarly in Agra division contracts awarded through e-auction include parking contract at Agra Cantonment, and for commercial advertisement at Goverdhan and Nadbai, the official shared.

The contracts awarded through e-auction in Jhansi Division, include parking contracts at Gwalior, Datia, Khajuraho and Mauranipur stations; Pay and Use toilets contract at Chitrakoot, Gwalior, Morena, Veerangana Laxmibai Jhansi and Datia and commercial advertisement contract of Banda, Lalitpur, Orai, Chitrakoot, Morena, Dabra, Tikamgarh, Chitrakoot , Gwalior, Chhatarpur, Datia and Veerangana Laxmibai Jhansi stations were awarded, he said .

E-auction guidelines

Railway Board had issued guidelines on June 13, 2022 for award of commercial contracts through e-auction. Under this, it has been ensured to award commercial contracts like parcel leasing, pay and use toilets, parking, commercial publicity, ATMs, etc. through e-auction.

Under the e-auction, the bidder has to register himself on the Indian Railways E-Procurement System (IREPS) website and for this, one-time ₹10,000 has to be deposited as registration fee through the IREPS website and the bidder has to open his current account in SBI Bank.

The e-auction process is completely online and being online increases transparency and trust. With this policy, any bidder can bid from anywhere. Earnest money at the time of bidding has also been reduced as compared to earlier. If the bidder does not get the contract, the earnest money is refunded immediately, whereas earlier this amount was not refundable till the contract was awarded, NCR officials said.

Along with this, in this process, the bidder gets to know how many people are participating in the e-auction and how many are bidding out of them. Through the e-auction process, the time taken in contracts, paperwork also gets reduced, they added.