Online tender management system for Polonnaruwa District Secretariat

Abstract

Tendering and awarding bids are the most important topics in the public sector procurement process. The process should have transparency, accountability to all stakeholders. Poionnaruwa District Secretariat is a public sector institute and presently the procurement process is totally handled manually. Distance barrier to the capital city and several other practical problems affect the efficiency, effectiveness and transparency ofthe procurement process. Present manual tendering system has several steps. 1. Tender descriptions are published in newspapers or directly are posted to registered suppliers / companies. 2. Companies or suppliers could bid for selected tenders and bidding details to be collected and post or hand deliver to the district secretariat on or before the closing date. 3. Suitable company or supplier is selected bjrtender board and only the awarded will be informed through registered post. The security ofthe system is very low and accountability and transparency are not up to required level. No electronic database system and no emergency construction or purchasing facility ofthe system. Number ofbids for each tender is very low due to lack ofsuitable publishing system. \ \ \ Project aims to develop an Online Tender Management System to ensure transparency, accountability, security and remove bottlenecks in the present manual system. Three categories (Tender staff, Registered Company, Citizen), who engage with tender process are authenticated by the system with different security levels and time schedule is also controlled. Registered companies are aware on new tenders by auto generating e-mails. Electronic database will reduce the time delay of the process. Number of bids for each tender will be increased. Finally the efficiency and effectiveness of the procurement process will be increased by the proposed system.