What the bluff: This Chaos Is Pure Gold

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Uttar Pradesh Directorate of Geology and Mining found gold deposits found in Sonabhadra district of the state.

As per reports of Geological Survey of India and Uttar Pradesh Directorate of Geology and Mining, the estimated gold is said to be around 3,000 tons at Son Pahadi and Hardi village area.

The British reportedly were the first to initiate the process of finding gold reserves in UP's Sonbhadra

The UP government started the process for allocation of blocks where gold is said to be found. A large reserve of gold was confirmed in Hardi village in Kone region and Son Pahadi in Mahuli region. The government has also constituted a seven-member team for auctioning of these blocks through e-tendering process.

The team will be geo-tagging the entire region and will submit its report to the Directorate of Geology and Mining, Lucknow by 22nd February'20.

District mining officer, kKRai said on Friday, auctioning of these blocks through e-tendering would start soon.

If these estimates hold true, India's gold reserve would jump to second place behind US. According to the World Gold Council's (WGC) data, the US has the largest gold holding with 8,133.5 tons, followed by Germany with 3,366 tons and IMF with 2,814 tons. Italy (2,451.8 tons) and France (2,436 tons) make the top five.

The deposits in Son Pahari are estimated to be around 2,943.26 tons, while that at Hardiblock are around 646.16 kilogram.

E-Tendering System (Electronic Tendering System) facilitates the complete tendering process from the advertising of the requirement through to the placing of the contract. This includes the exchange of all relevant documents in electronic format.

Organizations/corporations such as NHAI, Indian railways, SAIL, State/Central govt. ministries, often release their requirement document in the form of e-tender notice and invite relevant interested parties to bid for the same.

No Gold Found? 

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) on Saturday, 22nd February'20, said there has been no discovery of gold deposits estimated to be around 3,000 tons in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, as claimed by a district mining official.

He further added that the exploration works of the GSI for gold was not satisfactory and the results were not encouraging to come up with major resources for gold in Sonbhadra district.

Sonbhadra district mining officer K KRai had said on Friday, 21st February'20, that the gold deposits were found in Son Pahadi and Hardi areas of the district. The deposits in Son Pahadi were estimated to be around 2,943.26 tons, while that at Hardi block are around 646.16 kilogram, the official said.

Rejecting the claim, Sridhar said that in its report after exploration in the district "the GSI has estimated a probable category resource of 52,806.25 tons of ore with 3.03 grams per ton gold (average grade) for a strike length of 170m in Sub- Block-H, Son Pahadi of Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh.

The DG further clarified that the mineralized zone having an average grade of 3.03 grams per ton of gold is tentative in nature and the total gold which can be extracted from the total resource of 52,806.25 tons of ore is approximately 160 kg and not 3,350 tons as mentioned in the media.

Laws on E-Tendering

The Tender processes in India are governed by Indian Contract Act, Code of Civil Procedure Code, Indian Arbitration Act etc.

When the contract specifies Indian Law as the relevant law then the above said legislations will apply even if it is an International Arbitration with parties from different jurisdiction. With regard to the Indian company bidding for a tender in a foreign country to execute a work in a foreign land may require to follow and comply with law of different jurisdictions.

Procedure: 

1. Bidder should do Online Enrolment in this Portal using the option Click Here to Enroll available in the Home Page. Then the Digital Signature enrollment has to be done with the e-token, after logging into the portal. The e-token may be obtained from one of the authorized Certifying Authorities such as eMudhraCA/GNFC/IDRBT/MtnlTrustline/SafeScrpt/TCS.
2. Bidder then logs into the portal giving user id / password chosen during enrollment.
3. The e-token that is registered should be used by the bidder and should not be misused by others.
4. DSC once mapped to an account cannot be remapped to any other account. It can only be inactivated.
5. The Bidders can update well in advance, the documents such as certificates, purchase order details etc., under My Documents option and these can be selected as per tender requirements and then attached along with bid documents during bid submission. This will ensure lesser upload of bid documents.
6. After downloading / getting the tender schedules, the Bidder should go through them carefully and then submit the documents as per the tender document; otherwise, the bid will be rejected.
7. The BOQ template must not be modified/replaced by the bidder and the same should be uploaded after filling the relevant columns, else the bidder is liable to be rejected for that tender. Bidders are allowed to enter the Bidder Name and Values only.
8. If there are any clarifications, this may be obtained online through the eProcurement Portal, or through the contact details given in the tender document. Bidder should take into account of the corrigendum published before submitting the bids online.
9. Bidder, in advance, should prepare the bid documents to be submitted as indicated in the tender schedule and they should be in PDF/XLS/RAR/DWF formats. If there is more than one document, they can be clubbed together.
10. Bidder should arrange for the EMD as specified in the tender. The original should be posted/couriered/given in person to the Tender Inviting Authority, within the bid submission date and time for the tender.
11. The bidder reads the terms and conditions and accepts the same to proceed further to submit the bids
12. The bidder has to submit the tender document(s) online well in advance before the prescribed time to avoid any delay or problem during the bid submission process.
13. There is no limit on the size of the file uploaded at the server end. However, the upload is decided on the Memory available at the Client System as well as the Network bandwidth available at the client side at that point of time. In order to reduce the file size, bidders are suggested to scan the documents in 75-100 DPI so that the clarity is maintained and also the size of file also gets reduced. This will help in quick uploading even at very low bandwidth speeds.
14. It is important to note that, the bidder has to click on the Freeze Bid Button, to ensure that he/she completes the Bid Submission Process. Bids which are not Frozen are considered as Incomplete/Invalid bids and are not considered for evaluation purposes.
15. In case of Offline payments, the details of the Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) document submitted physically to the Department and the scanned copies furnished at the time of bid submission online should be the same otherwise the Tender will be summarily rejected.
16. The Tender Inviting Authority (TIA) will not be held responsible for any sort of delay or the difficulties faced during the submission of bids online by the bidders due to local issues.
17. The bidder may submit the bid documents online mode only, through this portal. Offline documents will not be handled through this system.
18. At the time of freezing the bid, the eProcurement system will give a successful bid updating message after uploading all the bid documents submitted and then a bid summary will be shown with the bid no, date & time of submission of the bid with all other relevant details. The documents submitted by the bidders will be digitally signed using the e-token of the bidder and then submitted.
19. After the bid submission, the bid summary has to be printed and kept as an acknowledgement as a token of the submission of the bid. The bid summary will act as a proof of bid submission for a tender floated and will also act as an entry point to participate in the bid opening event.
20. Successful bid submission from the system means, the bids as uploaded by the bidder is received and stored in the system. System does not certify for its correctness.
21. The bidder should see that the bid documents submitted should be free from virus and if the documents could not be opened, due to virus, during tender opening, the bid is liable to be rejected.
22. The time that is displayed from the server clock at the top of the tender Portal, will be valid for all actions of requesting bid submission, bid opening etc., in the e-Procurement portal. The Time followed in this portal is as per Indian Standard Time (IST) which is GMT+5:30. The bidders should adhere to this time during bid submission.
23. All the data being entered by the bidders would be encrypted at the client end, and the software uses PKI encryption techniques to ensure the secrecy of the data. The data entered will not be viewable by unauthorized persons during bid submission and not viewable by any one until the time of bid opening. Overall, the submitted bid documents become readable only after the tender opening by the authorized individual.
24. During transmission of bid document, the confidentiality of the bids is maintained since the data is transferred over secured Socket Layer (SSL) with 256 bit encryption technology. Data encryption of sensitive fields is also done.
25. The bidders are requested to submit the bids through online eProcurement system to the TIA well before the bid submission end date and time (as per Server System Clock).