Hyderabad,  The Telangana government on Wednesday floated a global e-tender for procurement of 10 million doses of vaccine for Covid over a period of six months.

The Telangana State Medical Services & Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) has invited online short term global e-tenders from licensed manufacturers for supply of Covid vaccine.

The tender can be downloaded from 6.30 p.m. on May 21 and the last date/time of online submission of the tender document is June 4, up to 6 p.m.

The date for opening of financial bids will be announced later.

The tender will be governed as per the guidelines of the Indian government, the TSMSIDC said.

Interested eligible bidders may obtain further information from the TSMSIDC and download the bidding documents from the official website http://tsmsidc.telangana.gov.in/

Detailed Bid documents may be downloaded free of cost from Telangana state Public Procurement portal (https://tender.telangana.gov.in) prior to the deadline for submission of bids.

A pre-bid meeting to hammer out details like scope of the procurement and explaining details of the bidding documents to interested pharma companies with the state health authorities and the TSMSIDC has been scheduled on May 26 through a virtual meet.

To participate in the e-Bid submission for TSMSIDC, it is mandatory for the bidders to get their firms registered with e-Procurement Portal https://tender.telangana.gov.in, using a valid Class III Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) and valid email address.

The bidders will be required to submit their bids online on the eProcurement Module. After downloading/getting the tender document/schedules, the bidder should go through them carefully and then submit the documents as asked, otherwise the bid will be rejected, the TSMSIDC said.

The bidders will be responsible for ensuring that any addenda available on the website is also downloaded and incorporated. It is construed that the bidder has read all the terms and conditions before submitting their offer. The validity of the contract between the TSMSIDC and the vaccine suppliers is one year.

The state Cabinet on May 11 had decided to float global tenders for procurement of Covid vaccines.

The state government has already announced free vaccination for the entire population. However, vaccination of targetted groups has been marred by inadequate supplies from the Centre.

The state is yet to launch vaccination for 18-44 age group while many beneficiaries in above 45 age group have not received their second dose.

According to officials, the state has so far received 57,30,220 doses of vaccine from the Centre.

The state has a population of nearly 4 crore, including people from different states who have come to work in various sectors. Vaccinating the entire population is expected to cost Rs 2,500 crore.

State minister K.T. Rama Rao said last week that the state can vaccinate the entire population in 45 days if the Centre provides the required number of doses.