The e-Procurement system of the Indian Railways has processed over 3,712 e-tenders in the last five months or so.
This Railways' e-procurement Web site launched around August-September 2008, has over 1,737 e-tenders which are currently uploaded (yet to be opened), 1,778 e-tenders have already been opened and over 197 purchase orders have been issued in last five-six months. Over 1,800 vendors, who are (potential) suppliers, have registered themselves on the Web site. Indian Railways procures goods valued at about INR 16,500 crore annually and this excludes procurement of another INR 5,000-odd crore.
The online procurement process started in various zones and five production units of the Railways from September 2008 onwar25ds. As on date, nine railway zones and five production units have already adopted e-procurement. The Ministry has asked the nine zonal railways and five production units to float and open all their tenders electronically by March 31, 2009.
