The number rose to 13 by November last year as it proved to be an efficient and transparent way of processing tenders, an official said.

The departments include the Health Department, government hospitals, the Public Works Department and the Education Department and this will be the first phase of implementing e-tendering in government departments.

Once the system is implemented formally, contractors will have the option of submitting their tenders online from any part of the country for any department after uploading the tender documents on the government website which would be updated by the Information Technology Department.

“The system has proved to be far more effective as e-tendering brings in transparency as the entire process of tendering right from publishing to the selection of contractors is web-based. Now there are no chances of missing tenders,” said an official from the IT department.

“Contractors were earlier rushing to submit their forms manually on the last day of submission, but now that will not be necessary as they can submit their documents online. They will only have to pay the submission charge to the department manually and after two to three months even this would not be necessary,” said the official adding that the implementation of e-tendering has also made the process easier for global contractors to pitch for a contract.

The system can handle 20-30,000 tenders at a time.