Karnataka to procure bicycles from small companies: FOPSIA

Says, `It’s big win of FOPSIA & Small Industry’
Ludhiana, May 20, 2016: Federation of Punjab Small Industries Associations (FOPSIA) is very thankful to the Government of Karnataka for changing its norms of purchase of Bicycles for the upcoming tender of around 5.2 Lac Bicycles for school students. They have relaxed the norms of turnover of the companies.

In a statement here today, FOPSIA president Badish Jindal and general secretary Raj Kumar Singla said, “It’s a big win for FOPSIA as FOPSIA was struggling for this amendment for last five years.”

They added earlier due to these norms Karnataka was procuring the bicycle from some particular companies on very high prices. The Karnataka was procuring at 3650 per bicycle whereas Punjab at 2424 per bicycle, Rajasthan 2780 per bicycle and Gujarat at 2489 per bicycle.

The only issue was that these states were procuring from the smaller companies so they were getting the very low price for similar qualities.

The small companies also make the good quality and the states purchase the bicycle as per their quality norms only. For instance the six major parts should be ISI marked and the weight should not be below 20Kg. So it’s not true that small companies supplies inferior material as compared to the big companies.

The purpose of the procurement policy of 20% reservation for small companies is also in this direction that there should be price competition and the smaller companies must get their share. But as this scheme is administrated through the state government so procurement policy is not implemented there.

Due to relaxation of norms the small companies gave 20% lower prices in tenders as compared to Karnataka’s last procurement. This will help in procuring more number of Bicycles in a state.

Karnataka always remained in limelight due to bicycle tender issues and in past it had to face many enquiries and court cases.

This year only small companies participated in Karnataka tender and resulted into a big discount for the state government. Once again it is proved that the small companies can provide the same quality at cheaper prices.

But it is learned that a few forces are forcing Karnataka to cancel this tender and for this purpose they are blaming that small companies will provide the inferior quality. But the main reason is that after this low purchase of 20% to 25% lower the officials of Karnataka may have to justify themselves for their all previous procurements. Further few forces are trying to cancel this tender and blame small companies and few associations for its loss to bicycle industry.

“We are writing and requesting the government of Karnataka for not to cancel these tenders and in future also they should allow the small companies to participate in all tenders”, they said.