To boost for small entrepreneurs and start-ups, the railways bring its commercial earning and non-fare revenue contracts online, with no financial turnover requirement for annual contracts of up to Rs. 40 lakh.
In line with the prevailing e-auction of scrap sale, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw launch e-auction for commercial earning and non-fare revenue (NFR) contracts on Friday.
Ashwini Vaishnaw Said :
“This policy is in line with the vision of the prime minister to change the experience of the common man by the use of technology. With this new policy, the tedious process of tendering would get simplified. Also, it would give opportunities to youngsters to join the e-auction process. This policy enhances ease of living, promotes transparency and adds to Digital India initiatives in the railways,”.
The earning assets up for auction will be parcel vans, pay-and-use toilets, advertisement rights on station circulating areas and coaches, air-conditioned waiting rooms, cloak rooms, parking lots, plastic bottle crushers, ATMs, station co-branding, video screens for content on demand etc.
These assets will be map location-wise on the portal once and the system will remember forever if it is cover for earning or not.
This will improve the monitoring of assets on a real-time basis and minimise asset-idling.
Participation in e-tendering currently requires physical registration with the field unit concerned.
As it takes time in finalisation due to the requirement of physical meeting of the tender committee members.
In the e-auction process, a bidder from anywhere in the country needs to self-register once for participating in the auctions of any field unit of the Indian Railways through the portal.
Bids can be place remotely for the management rights of an asset after depositing the earnest money (EMD) electronically.
A successful bidder would be able to receive acceptance online and through e-mail in a very short span of time.
Except the requirement of financial turnover, as such all the eligibility criteria have remove.
Ashwini Vaishnaw Said :
“Further, the financial requirement has been relaxed to a great extent. There is no financial turnover requirement for annual contracts of up to Rs. 40 lakh,”.
A pilot for the project was launch in 11 divisions of nine railway zones.
A total of 80 contracts of a combined value of Rs. 128 crore were finalise during the pilot launch.
During the pilot run, the Ahmedabad division had conduct an e-auction for two parking lots at Gandhidham Junction and Himmatnagar on 4th June 2022.
For Gandhidham Junction (GIMB), 24 bids were receive with the highest one being Rs 12.6 lakh (per annum), which is 38% above the conventional bidding price.
For Himmatnagar (HMT), 26 bids were receive with the highest one being Rs. 62,500 (per annum), which is 72% above the conventional bidding price.
The e-auction will be conduct online through the “E-Auction Leasing” module of IREPS — www.ireps.gov.in.
