Uttarakhand floats global tender to get Covid vaccines

The Uttarakhand government on Saturday floated global tender for procurement of Covid-19 vaccine to vaccinate 3 million individuals in the state. As per the bidding eligibility criteria, the applicant should not belong to countries sharing borders with India.

The technical capacity (specifications) of the tender says that the applicant, in its own name, should have satisfactorily supplied Covid-19 vaccines to a public organisation of the Government of India, or any other government in America/Europe/Australia/Asia, excluding countries sharing borders with India.

The minimum average annual turnover in the last three financial years of the applicant should be Rs 30 crore, it mentions. After issue of work order/purchase order, delivery of Covid-19 vaccine will have to be done within four weeks, it states.

The tender document reads that due to surge in Covid-19 cases health infrastructure of the state is stretched, and that the vaccine has “potential to give relief to [the] stretched healthcare infrastructure”.

“It is proposed to procure Covid-19 Vaccine for vaccinating the population residing/working within the jurisdiction of the State. Considering the short availability of Covid 19 Vaccine in India, a global RFP from Manufacturers/ Indian partners/Wholesalers/Authorised Distributors or Dealers is invited herewith,” the tender document states.

The Uttarakhand government has formed a five-member committee to execute the procurement exercise through the global tender.

Procurement committee member and state Additional Secretary Yughal Kishore Pant said that the condition related to bordering state has been included because there were some decisions from the state Cabinet and the Centre in the past regarding procurement from bordering countries.

In a meeting on December 9, 2020, the Uttarakhand Cabinet had decided to adopt an amendment that the Centre had made in the General Financial Rules, 2017, to impose curbs on public procurement from bidders of countries that share a land border with India. Uttarakhand shares land borders with China and Nepal.

To follow the amendment by the Centre, the state Cabinet had amended the Uttarakhand Procurement Rules, 2017.

Earlier this week, Uttarakhand Chief Secretary Om Prakash had said the state government will import more than 20 lakh doses of the Russian Sputnik vaccine in the next two months. He had also said that vaccine doses received by Uttarakhand so far were insufficient for its requirement.

The state is set to get around 8 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses this month and 9 lakh more in June from the Centre, with the condition that second dose jabs should be given on priority.

In the ongoing vaccination drive in the state, 18.94 lakh people have been vaccinated once and 6.74 lakh people have received both doses. There were 79,379 active cases in the hill state as on Friday, and the state’s sample positivity rate was 6.6 per cent.