It does not begin with the tender notice, winning, and the paperwork. It begins with a single simple filter that the majority of bidders do not pay much attention to: the eligibility of the tender. High proportion of bids are rejected before technical examination starts and this is just because bidders misinterpreted or overlooked the eligibility requirement in tender. In this article, you will get to understand the eligibility in a real sense and by using real government and rail tender logic to make a decision whether to bid or walk away before losing time and money.
The conception of eligibility is not as rule-dependent as it is probable. Imagine a mathematical gate: when you fail to meet even one of the conditions, which are obligatory, your probability of being selected will immediately reduce to zero, no matter how competitive your quote is.
What Is Tender Eligibility and Why It Exists.
Tender eligibility means the minimum requirements a bidder must possess in order to be taken to be evaluated. Eligibility filters are designed to minimize the risk by governments. On their part, the eligibility is risk-controlling, rather than a formality.
In simple words, there are requirements of qualification to the tender answer one core question: Can this bidder be able to deliver this piece of work realistically, without a failure to deliver it financially, technically, or legally?
This is the reason why the government tender qualification regulations are usually conservative. The government would prefer to do away with ten potential capable bidders than to pick one who will fail in the middle of the project.
How Tender Eligibility Criteria Are Structured in Tender Documents
In the majority of cases, the majority of tender eligibility criteria are categorized into five logical categories although they may not be explicitly stated in the document.
Legal and Statutory Eligibility.
This is to verify that the bidder is a legal person and is not prohibited to conduct business. Generally it will require valid business registration, PAN, GST, MSME or Startup certificates where applicable and no blacklisting. Tender eligibility can be nullified by even a single discrepancy in name, address, and the type of registration.
From an evaluator’s mindset, legal eligibility is binary. Either you qualify or you don’t.
Financial Eligibility
The financial capability forms a fundamental component of government tender qualification. Officials seek turnover levels, net worth, liquidity, and even solvency certificates.
The logic is simple math. Assuming that conducting a project requires [?]5 crore, a company with an annual turnover of [?]50 lakh is more likely to fail under the stress of cash-flow statistically. This is the reason why average annual turnover in the past three to five years is usually cited as an eligibility requirement in tender.
The most common error that is committed by bidders is that a strong financial year offsets bad past years. The majority of tenders are based on averages, rather than peaks.
Technical and Experience Eligibility.
This is the place of majority of rejections. The tender eligibility requirements usually demand that the individual complete related works, as opposed to similar works. The meaning of similar is normally strict and literal.
By way of example, laying underground electric cables is not necessarily regarded as similar to overhead transmission line work, even though both involve electrical infrastructure. This rigidity is even more so in the case of railway work.
Railway Tender Eligibility Criteria: Why They Are More Stringent
The eligibility of railways tender is one of the tightest in India. Railways are safety critical infrastructure with ramifications in the form of failure to the wider society. Consequently, experience requirements are very narrow.
The railway tenders can require evidence of activities work in the railway premises where certain values of a tender limit and issue the certificates of completion are only issued by railway authorities. Maybe experience in the private sector, regardless of size, does not matter.
The other important element of eligibility criteria in railway tenders is time relevancy. The experience with age over five to seven years is usually not accepted, irrespective of scale. The psychology behind this is risk aversion, coupled with institutional memory. Railways believe in what they know rather than in innovation.
Open tender vs Limited Tender Eligibility Criteria.
Open tender eligibility criteria is made publicly accessible and any qualified bidder is eligible to participate. Open, however, does not mean easy. Open tenders tend to offset openness by having tougher eligibility filters.
Limited tenders on the other hand pre-screen bidders via empanelment. In the case of open tenders, eligibility is the main defence mechanism amongst unqualified participation.
That is why the list of the eligibility criteria of open tender documents has rather extended, detailed, and non-negotiable points. All the clauses are aimed at being objectively verifiable.
Common Clauses That Quietly Disqualify Bidders
A lot of bidders read eligibility with the intention of reading them carelessly in the view that intention is more significant than interpretation. Evaluators do not act out of deliberation. They work on documentation.
A few examples:
- Misunderstood or incorrectly recorded joint venture eligibility.
- Turnover was calculated with and without GST.
- Certificates with inaccurate words as per the tendering eligibility criteria.
- Audits of financial statements are not prepared within the required years.
They are not technical rejections. They are mathematical eliminations.
Why Eligibility Criteria Are Non-Negotiable After Submission
In most government tender practices, after submissions of bids, no correction or clarity is possible. Any form of rectifications would undermine equity and put the authorities in the position of audit objections.
In behavioral psychology perspective, assessors fall into the trap of making decisions guided by rules since such decisions diminish the responsibility of individuals. That is why government tender qualification clauses are pursued strictly even in cases when the implementation of rejection appears to be cruel.
What to do to Self-Audit your Tender Eligibility Before You Apply.
Tender eligibility should be viewed as checklist before application with zero tolerance. You fail to pass 90 percent conditions.
The best method to do this will be to rephrase the eligibility section into a table and reference each line to a document you already have. In the event that the document does not exist today, on this basis assume the ineligibility.
This will save money, reputation and emotional resource.
On Closing Note..
There are no strong bidders who pursue every tender. They make selections based on tenders in which the eligibility criteria in tender are complimentary to their history of operation.
Consider eligibility to be market segmentation. The government is not attempting to prevent bidders. They are attempting to appeal to a type of risk profile. By learning this, you are no longer frustrated you just are strategic.
When you persistently lose at eligibility, paperwork is not the issue. It’s positioning.
