The New Indian Express 17.04.2013
E-payment facility for government works introduced in Kerala
As part of ensuring transparency in administration, the IT Department
of the State Government has integrated an e-payment mechanism to its
existing e-procurement system.
With the introduction of this
facility, bidders can make payment online towards tender document fees
and Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) and the government can make online
refunds of EMD amount to the unsuccessful bidders’ bank accounts in a
time-bound manner. This is aimed at enhancing transparency and ensuring
complete confidentiality and anonymity in the government tendering
process.
The integration of e-payment system will replace the
present, conventional system of payment of tender document fees and EMD
through Demand Drafts.
IT Department Principal Secretary P H
Kurian said that one of the key features of online payment mechanism for
e-procurement project was its payment mode. The bidders having account
with SBT can now make online payments through SBT’s Internet banking
facility. Bidders having account with other banks can also make payments
through NEFT payment gateway of the SBT. For a bidder opting to make
payment through the NEFT payment gateway, a pre-filled challan will be
made available by the e-procurement system. The bidder with this
pre-filled challan can make an online NEFT payment using Internet
Banking facility of the bank in which he holds an account, by adding the
account number in the challan as beneficiary.
Alternately, if he
does not have an Internet banking facility, he should take a print out
of the pre-filled challan and can visit his bank branch and transfer
money from his bank account. The bidder should exercise this option 48
hours before the closing of the bid.
This feature of offline
payment would be available only till December 2013. The other Inter-bank
remittance channels such as RTGS and GRPT are not available for
e-tender process. Another advantage of e-payment mechanism is that it
facilitates online refund mechanism for unsuccessful bidders, straight
into their accounts.
The online payment for e-tendering and
procurement also ensures faster and secure collection of amount by the
government as the amount gets deposited automatically in a designated
account, said C Jayasankar Prasad, director-KSITM.
It further
relieves department users from activities such as receipt of DD, its
safe storage and remittance to government and no paper work will be
needed from department users anymore, for remitting the amount from
bidders to the government and back.
