The e-Procurement project implemented by the IT & C department of Andhra Government has today won 'The Gold Icon' award for the category 'Exemplary Implementation of e-Governance Initiative'. The award is given by the Department Of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances for the best e-governance projects implemented by government departments or states.

C1 India and Andhra Pradesh government have jointly implemented the project in a public private partnership model (PPP). At the Seventh National Governance Conference held in Chennai on Thursday, deputy Prime Minister, Mr. L K Advani presented the awards to the Principal Secretary of IT&C department, DR J C Mohanty and the COO and President of C1 India, Mr. Vivek Agarwal.

"It was a difficult project as it was first of its kind in the country. The project posed many implementation challenges as it involved a lot of change management. The project has not only reduced tender processing time but has also substantially reduced costs for the government and made the tendering process transparent, said Mr. Agarwal in a company press release.

Mr J C Mohanty said the progress of the e-procurement project in AP has been extremely encouraging and the government has decided to float all the tenders of more than Rs 10 lakh on the eprocurement platform till the year 2004-2005. C1 India e-procurement implementation for AP government is the largest Government to Business (G2B) platform in the country and among the largest Internet based eGovernance applications. C1 India plans to take the project across different states and central government departments. While eight departments are utilizing the e-procurement model, more department are expected to go online soon.