Indian firm-led consortium bags Oman e-tender contract

               Indo-Asian News Service              

      Dubai, Sep 16 (IANS) Oman has awarded a 2.1 million-Omani riyal ($5.4-million) contract to a consortium comprising Indian IT firm C1 India and Oman's Industrial Management Technology and Contracting (Imtac) to launch an online tendering system covering 55 government departments.

      Tender Board, Oman's official regulator for tendering processes across various government departments, has signed an agreement with the two companies in its bid to fully automate the tendering and company registration processes in that Gulf nation.

      The deal was signed by Oman's Minister for Transport and Communications and chairman of the Tender Board Khamis Bin Mubarak Al Alawi, chief executive of C1 India Vivek Agarwal and Imtac vice-chairman Fareed Al Hinai in Muscat, the media here reported.

      Also present were India's Ambassador to Oman Anil Wadhwa, secretary general of Oman Information Technology Authority (ITA) Mohammed Bin Nasser Al Khusaibi, and other Tender Board and ITA officials.

      According to Al Alawi, the new system will improve transparency of the tendering process as well as facilitate easy participation of registered companies from around the world.

      “The project reflects periodic enhancements of the tendering processes and utilises IT to ensure enhanced efficiency in implementing government projects,” he said after signing the agreement.

      Tender Board undersecretary Syed Mahmood Bin Hilal Bin Sood said the new project, formulated in coordination with ITA, would help develop a new electronic tendering system in the country.

      “The project mainly aims to automate all manual processes required during the tendering stages and train Tender Board staff and IT professionals to ensure effective use, management and efficient monitoring of the e-tendering system,” he said.

      Mohammed Al Dhuhli, ITA project manager said the e-tendering process would enable all local and international vendors to use the online system to register and renew registration with Tender Board.

      “In the first phase, which is planned to be completed in nine months, it will automate all tendering processes of the Tender Board and five government entities. The other 50 entities will join the system in phase II,” he was quoted as saying.

      “The selected e-tendering system can be used by all government entities whether they are following the Tender Board Laws and Regulations or even if they are exempted since the selected system can be customised to include any number of entities.”

      Stating that this was the first project of its kind in the Middle East, wherein e-procurement was being adopted at the national level by all government departments, Agarwal said: “This project will become the reference point and a role model for all such initiatives in the region. The Tender Board followed a very rigorous evaluation process for selecting the product from among all the best-known players in the world.”

      C1 India is a leading provider of e-procurement and e-sourcing solutions, which help organisations automate their entire purchasing cycle form indent to payment.

      Its flagship product, Tender Management Software, is an end-to-end Internet-based electronic tendering solution that automates the complete tender cycle.

      Among its clients in India are the Andhra Pradesh government and the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D).

      Imtac, Oman's leading IT group, is owned by Services and Trade, the Oman-based subsidiary of Indian real estate developer Sobha Group.

      Indo-Asian News Service

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