Manufacturing & Supply

Who buys in this sector

Anybody who spends public money on goods. What changes from buyer to buyer is the route, not the appetite.

Central ministries, departments and their attached offices. For anything listed on the Government e Marketplace, the route is fixed: Rule 149 of GFR 2017 makes procurement through GeM mandatory for goods and services available on it, and the marketplace's own account of itself says the purchases “have been authorised and made mandatory by Ministry of Finance by adding a new Rule No. 149 in the General Financial Rules, 2017.” What is not on GeM is tendered in the ordinary way.

Indian Railways, which runs a system of its own rather than NIC's. Zonal railways and production units place their supply tenders on the Indian Railways E-Procurement System, and vendor approval runs through UVAM from the same account: “all the activities related to approval of vendors has been digitized”, with requests submitted online and their status tracked there.

Ministry of Defence organisations, whose revenue and works tenders sit on the ministry's own instance, where a bidder may “download the Tender Schedule free of cost and then submit the bids online through this portal.”

Public-sector undertakings, each with a supplier register beside its tender list. BHEL publishes tender and corrigendum notifications on its corporate site and takes supplier registration through its SUVIDHA portal. SAIL runs its vendor-facing tenders on one platform and its project tendering on another.

States and the bodies under them, on the state's own instance: Odisha's carries the works and goods tenders of state departments, boards and municipal bodies.

What they tender for

A rate contract is “an agreement between the purchaser and the Supplier for the supply of specified goods … at a set price and terms & conditions … No quantity is mentioned, nor is any minimum drawable quantity guaranteed. The Rate Contract is a standing offer from the supplier firm.”

The same goods reach the same buyer by three routes. On GeM a purchase runs as a direct purchase from any listed seller, as a lowest-price purchase among at least three different manufacturers, or through online bidding or a reverse auction; the value bands separating them were reset by the office memorandum of 10 July 2024. Above the value Rule 161(i) sets, a buyer outside GeM advertises openly. Those bands are stated once on this site, on selling on GeM: registration and purchase slabs and How procurement works.

Where the tenders are published

Under Rule 159 of GFR 2017 a central buyer publishes its tender enquiry, corrigenda and award details on the Central Public Procurement Portal, and under Rule 160 receives every bid electronically. That portal is where the schedule is downloaded and the bid submitted. Listed items are bought on GeM itself, which carries direct purchase, bid and reverse auction as its modes. Railway supply tenders are on IREPS, defence ones on the ministry's instance, a public-sector undertaking's on its own site, and a state's on the state instance.

A supplier therefore keeps two presences: a catalogue where the buyer shops, and an enrolment where the buyer tenders. Which portal belongs to which buyer is on The portals.

The clauses that decide eligibility here

Four things decide whether a goods bid survives the technical cover.

• What you are. Manufacturer, authorised dealer or trader, proved by an authorisation letter from the maker where the tender asks for one. It also decides a preference: “traders/ distributors/ sole agent/ Works Contract are excluded from the purview of Public Procurement Policy for MSEs Order,2012.”
• Your local-content class. The Make in India order sorts every bidder into a “Class-I local supplier”, a “Class-II local supplier” or a “Non-local supplier” by the local content of what is offered, and gives purchase preference only to the first: “'Class-II local supplier' will not get purchase preference”. Where a nodal ministry has notified sufficient local capacity, a tender can be closed to everyone else. The thresholds, the margin and the split are on Class-I, Class-II or non-local.
• Your enterprise band. Udyam registration is what proves a micro or small enterprise to a buyer; the order behind it earmarks a share of annual procurement for such enterprises, including a share for those owned by women. What that band gives is on what the MSE policy gives and does not.
• Your approvals. Portal enrolment is not vendor approval. GeM registration is done by the “Owner, Proprietor, Karta, Partner, Director, CEO, Chairman, President or Authorised personnel of the organization”, and “There are no charges or fee for getting registered”; railway vendor approval is a separate application through UVAM; a public-sector undertaking's supplier register is separate again. What each one asks for is on Before you can bid.

Past supply, turnover and the standards a tender names sit alongside these; how a buyer counts them is on similar work and turnover. Where a certificate of local content is required, the order names who may sign it: the statutory or cost auditor of a company, or a practising cost accountant or practising chartered accountant for other suppliers.

Money in these bids

This is general information; confirm with the tender document and your adviser.

With the bid. Bid security, or a bid securing declaration in its place, under which a bidder who withdraws or modifies a bid during its validity, or fails to sign or furnish performance security, “will be suspended for the period of time specified in the request for bids document from being eligible to submit Bids for contracts with the entity that invited the Bids.” Micro and small enterprises are facilitated “by providing them tender sets free of cost, exempting MSEs from payment of earnest money deposit”. The band and the exemptions are on EMD exemptions and the bid-securing declaration.

On award. Performance security under Rule 171 of GFR 2017, as amended by the office memorandum of 1 January 2024, and no relief from it for a small enterprise: “there is no exemption on Security Deposit/ Performance Bank Guarantee under the Policy.” An order placed on GeM runs on the marketplace's own terms, which set performance security on the scale those terms state and make transaction and annual milestone charges payable “as per extant Revenue Policy of GeM”; caution money, which sellers once lodged, is a provision GeM's own answer says “was discontinued in 2025.” What is held back after an award, and the instruments accepted for it, are on what is held back after you win; when each sum comes back is on Money in a bid.

One deduction is neither security nor charge: a government buyer deducts tax at source before a bill is paid, under two separate Acts, and the rates belong with an accountant rather than a tender page.