The e-procurement system of the state government, which is now under implementation in selected departments on pilot basis, will be made fully operational from January 1, 2005.

Principal secretary (information Technology and communications) J.C.Mohanty and secretary Ajay Sawhney told newspersons on tuesday that the department and C1india private limited, the agency which is implementing the project on Application Service Provider model, were finetuning the system to enable fullfledged launch by January 1.

At a meeting with chief secretary on Tuesday, a new pricing structure was decided for participating bidders under e-procurement.They will have to pay a transaction fee of 0.04 percent of estimated contract value(ECV). But there will be a cap of Rs.10,000 for works of value upto Rs 50 crore and Rs. 25,000 for works of Rs 50 crore value and above.

The AP technological services(APTS) will also be issuing digital signatures in collaboration with certifying agencies. Major agencies such as AP Transco, AP Genco, Singareni collieries, TTD and HMWSSB are likely to join e-procurement soon, the officials said.

The pilot project was kicked off on January 29,2003, in AP Technological services(APTS), irrigation, roads & buildings, AP State road transport corporation(APSRTC) and AP health medical housing and infrastructure development corporation (APHMHIDC).

It has subsequently been extended to the engineering wings of Tribal welfare, panchayat raj and public health, AP state police housing corporation and Animal husbandry department.

According to the officials, Rs 1,982 crore worth transactions were made in eight departments which implemented e-procurement during 2003-04. This resulted in Rs 255-crore saving due to tender discounts. By September 30 in the current fiscal, Rs 878 crore worth transactions had been made in nine departments, as against a target of Rs 5,000 crore.

“The best fall out of the system is conservation of time. While the entire process of calling tenders and finalising the bids used to take six months earlier, it has now come down to 45 days. We want to reduce this to seven days,” Mohanty said.