| Sr. No. | Tender Reference(s) – Section, Page | Content of Tender requiring clarification | Issue raised / Questions asked by the Prospective Bidders | Clarification / Corrigendum |
| 1. | Page No.15, Pre-Qualification Criteria, Point No.2.1 | The Bidder shall have minimum five years of experience in digitization of archival documents. | Kindly consider scanning and digitization of documents scanning experience. | The archival records are unique and different. They need special care and handling. The Bidder’s past experience in digitisation of archival documents is essential to ensure proper care in handling the records in the digitisation project.
As mentioned in the tender document, preference shall be given to Bidders having higher experience and higher number of digitisation work completed in Archival institutions. |
| 2. | Page No.15, Pre-Qualification Criteria, Point No.2.ii | The digitization experience of the Bidder shall include digitisation of minimum 5 lakh pages in any archives (National Archives of India, State Archives, Business Archives, Bank Archives, or any national or international archives) or RBI. | Kindly consider scanning and digitization of 5 lakh documents scanning experience. |
| 3. | Page No.15, Pre-Qualification Criteria, Point No.2.iii | Preference shall be given to Bidders having higher experience and higher number of digitisation work completed in Archival institutions. | Kindly give preference to those Bidder who have maximum turnover. |
| 4. | Page No.15, Pre-Qualification Criteria, Point No.4.i | The Bidder shall preferably own both type of high quality scanning equipment i.e., overhead and flat-bed scanners (minimum 3 scanners in all) ideal for digitizing old archival records / files including very brittle documents up to 100 years and above and large / over-sized documents i.e., A0 size Registers / maps / spreadsheets etc. However, if the bidders do not own the scanners they shall give evidence of hiring the scanners for the digitisation project. | For wider participation and discovery of better L1 price, Department should consider the undertaking of scanner availability at the time execution of project. | As stated in the Tender the Bidders need to submit proof of owning scanners. If they do not own the scanners, they shall provide copy of agreement regarding hiring the scanners. There cannot be any change in this criteria. |
| 5. | Page No.19, Point No. XXI | Most of the documents to be digitized are in A4 and Legal size. The size of documents to be scanned / digitized in RBI Archives varies from post card size to A0 size. However, most of the pages around 95% are either in legal size or A4 size. The Bidder has to quote the cost on per page rate basis for digitisation / scanning irrespective of the size of the document. | Kindly share the age of documents and more details about other size of documents. | The documents to be scanned in RBI Archives are from 10 years to 100 years old. The size of the documents may range from Post Card size to A0 size.
Less than 1% documents may pertain to A0 size. Most of the documents to be scanned are in legal or A4 size. Around 4% of the documents may range from A3 to A1 size. |
| 6. | Page No.35, Point No.6 & 7 | Number of skilled staff on Payroll of the firm for digitisation work as on June 30, 2021 (please attach documentary proof i.e., Payroll, PF Return Statement, etc.) | As a company practice we hire operators from manpower contractors, hence we don’t hold their PF and ESI responsibilities. We would therefore request that the proof of PF deduction may be removed from the qualifying criteria on Page No.16 and Page No.35. | Taking into consideration of the issues discussed, it has been decided to waive off the requirement of documents relating to PF deduction. However, payslips of staff working in digitisation project shall be attached by the Bidders. |
| 7. | Page No.15, Point No.3 | Certified copy of the Profit and Loss Account of the firm / agency. | The audited financial results of 2020 – 21 are not yet finalised. | Bidders are advised to complete their Financial Audits for the year 2020-21 before submission of the Bid. However, in case it is not complete Bidders shall submit audited results of 3 years i.e., 2017 – 18, 2018 – 19, 2019 – 20 and pre-audited turnover certificates from a Chartered Accountant for the year 2020 – 21. |
| 8. | Page No.30, Point No.10 | Earnest Money Deposit | EMD may exempted for MSMEs. | Exemptions of EMD cannot be considered as per the Bank’s guidelines. |