On June 24, 2022, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Ministry of Railways launched e-auction for commercial earning, and Non-Fare Revenue (NFR) contracts, in Rail Bhavan, New Delhi (Delhi).
- This launch was made to bring Commercial Earning and NFR contracts under the ambit of electronic auction through Indian Railway e-Procurement System (IREPS), in line with prevailing e-auction of scrap sale.
Key Points:
i.The e-auction for commercial earning will increase railways earning, and also enhance ease of doing business.
ii.The e-auction will be conducted online through the ‘E-Auction Leasing’ module of IREPS- www.ireps.gov.in.
iii.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.
- These assets will be mapped location-wise on the portal once and the system will remember forever if it is covered for earning or not.
- This will improve the monitoring of assets on a real-time basis and minimize asset-idling.
iv.Bidders can participate from anywhere in India through the portal. Remotely bid can be placed for management rights of an asset after depositing earnest money (EMD) electronically.
- There is no financial turnover requirement for annual contracts upto Rs. 40 lacs.
- It should be noted that currently participation in e-tendering physical registration with the field unit concerned.
- In case any bid is received within last 2 minutes of auction closing time, then the closing time for the lot will be extended automatically for 2 minutes. 10 such auto extensions will be permitted to ensure adequate time for all bidders to submit their bids.
Pilot project for e-auction:
A pilot for the project was launched in 11 divisions of nine railway zones. A total of 80 contracts of a combined value of Rs 128 crore were finalized during this.
Recent Related News:
i.Indian Railways along Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), has Successfully commissioned India’s first Solar Photovoltaic Plant of 1.7-MegaWatt (MW) at Bina, Madhya Pradesh. The plant is under extensive testing and will be in operation for Indian Railways.
ii.The Ministry of Railways has approved to set up India’s biggest world Class wrestling academy at Indian Railways, Kishanganj, Delhi.
About Ministry of Railways:
Union Minister– Ashwini Vaishnaw, (Rajya Sabha– Odisha)
Ministers of State– Raosaheb Patil Danve (Constituency- Jalna, Maharashtra), Darshana Jardosh (Constituency- Surat, Gujarat)
