The capital procurement process for defence including issues relating to Request For Information (RFI), Request For Proposal (RFP) and Transfer of Technology (ToT) is governed by Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP). RFI process has been elaborated in detail as the first step of the acquisition process and its objectives have been clearly defined in the extant DPP-2016. Further in the procurement cases involving ToT, the Request for Proposal (RFP) includes the requirement for indigenous manufacturing.
DPP-2016 contains the following provisions to cut down the procurement cycle and also to make it simpler and user friendly:-
- Broad timeframe for completing procurement activities has been reduced from 80-117 weeks to 70-94 weeks in multi-vendor cases and from 92-137 weeks to 82-114 weeks in resultant Single Vendor cases.
- Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) validity has been reduced to six months (from one year) for ‘Buy’ cases and to one year (from two years) for ‘Buy & Make (Indian)’ cases.
- Draft Request for Proposal (RFP) has to accompany Statement of Case (SoC) for AoN.
- Guidelines for Change of Name of Vendor have been incorporated and Guidelines for Handling of Complaints have been notified to address avoidable delays on this account.
Ministry of Defence