The Digital India foot print is expanding day by day. It has been the consistent focus of Shri Narendra Modi Government, to improve Digital Governance as it is critical for faster delivery and effective monitoring of services.

The transformation happening under the overall Digital India initiative is creating huge opportunities for involvement of industry/private sector, mainly providers of IT/IT enabled systems and services. However, various concerns have been raised from time to time by the industry relating to their engagements (and contracts) with government funded projects. These issues include terms of payments, acceptance criteria, service level agreement and change management etc.

It is the consistent representation of NASSCOM, as also the major System Integrators like TCS, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, IBM etc, for the need of a model RFP to guide all the organizations across governments, so that all variations, vagaries and uncertainties may be avoided. Based on intensive deliberations with the industry and other stakeholders, this model RFP has been formulated.

The major features of Model RFP provides for,

1.      Level playing field, to all stakeholders by defining appropriate pre-qualification and technical evaluation criterion.

2.      Aligning legal terms and conditions with the requirements of the IT Industry

·         Template for scope of work and service level agreements

·         Change request mechanisms

·         Dispute resolution

·         Standard contractual terms & conditions

·         Standardization of Intellectual property rights

·         Capping the liability, penalty and liquidated damages

3.      Making payment terms, objective and easier, for industry and Government Department

·         Guidance on simplifying payment related conditions

·         Incorporating the Exchange rate variations

4.      Converging Government schemes like Make in India / Preference for Domestically Manufactured Electronic Goods (PMA), provisions for Start-ups and MSMEs

5.      Leveraging latest technologies like cloud, mobiles, etc.

6.      Aligned with the General Financial Rule 2017

7.      Adherence to the latest standards\

NNK/MD