LIC Tenders: How to search, eligibility criteria and documents required

With its tagline of Jindagi ke Sath Bhi, jindagi ke bad bhi, LIC or Life Insurance Corporation is a leading company in the insurance segment in India. Apart from being a leading insurance provider, LIC is also one of the leading buyers that fulfils its procurement needs through an e-procurement portal. This article elaborates on tenders processing, how to search for LIC tenders, eligibility criteria and required documents.

Let’s look at how does LIC meet its procurement needs.

LIC tendering process

Like other large organisations, LIC also has its portal for the e-procurement process. You can visit LIC Tender Wizard or https://licindia.in/tenders to search for new tenders. However, before you begin with the search, let’s understand a generally followed tendering process by LIC:

• Tender notice: LIC releases a tender notification. The notification specifies its need for specific goods, services, or contracts. The tender notification includes details including the scope of work, eligibility criteria, submission requirements, and the deadline for submitting the bid.
• Bid submission: Interested vendors prepare and submit their bid documents aligning with the provided instructions. Vendors need to comply with the eligibility criteria and a list of documents required.
• Evaluation: After the bid submission closing date, LIC opens all bids. Firstly, bids not complying to the eligibility criteria are rejected. Next, the tender evaluation process takes place on the basis of various factors including price, technical capabilities and any other criterion mentioned by LIC.
• Awarding a contract: As per the bidder’s score in the financial evaluation phase and technical evaluation stage, the contract is awarded to the most suited bidder.

LIC tenders: Vendor registration process

Vendors will need to register on the above-given LIC Tender Wizard portal for bidding for LIC tenders. Here is how you can register.

Step 1: Visit the LIC tender Wizard portal and click on ‘Register’

Step 2: Accept the terms and conditions.

Step 3: Fill in the form. It includes basic information about your company, contact information and selecting your class of trade (Works, goods or services)

Step 4: You will need to upload your documents including a Digital signature certificate for tendering.

Step 5: Vendors need to pay ₹1180 registration charges. You can pay it through Debit card/Credit card/Net-banking.

Step 6: You will be confirmed as a vendor on the portal. After successful vendor registration, you will get a User ID and password to log in to the portal.

Searching relevant LIC tenders

Once you complete the vendor registration on the LIC Tender Wizard portal, you can search for relevant LIC tenders for your business. You will also be able to view tenders’ details such as tender notice and terms and conditions.

As mentioned earlier, LIC generally floats tenders in three categories:

• Works: Procurement of various works such as engineering work, etc.
• Goods: Procurement of goods such as stationery, furniture, etc.
• Service: Procurement services such as consultancy, marketing, and so on.

You can search for a relevant tender for your business.

Another way of looking for tenders matching to your business needs is Tata nexarc. You can easily activate a subscription to Tenders, which will help you update settings and get email recommendations on tenders relevant to your business.

LIC tenders: Useful terminologies

Here is a list of terminologies used on the LIC Tender Wizard portal.

Terminology	Description
Hot tenders	Tenders that are closing within 24 hours
In progress	The participated tenders are listed under ‘In progress’.
Opened	A link is provided to see the tenders which are ‘Opened’.
Awarded	A list of tenders which are awarded to a particular company.
Document library	Vendors can upload commonly required documents in the documents library folder of the LIC Tender Wizard portal. It is then, easy to attach these documents to relevant tenders.
Edit attachment	Vendors can download the forms and enter Form Fee, EMD and also can upload required documents.

LIC tenders: Things to remember

• It is recommended to check for system requirements before you register or start bidding for LIC tenders. You can click on ‘Utilities’ on the LIC Tender Wizard portal to check for these requirements.
• Vendors can submit documents or even withdraw the submitted bid before closing of the tender dates, and verify the payments made. However, the same can not be done after the closing date. In fact, if you decide to withdraw after the closing date, your tender fee or EMD may be forfeited.
• Do not take technical criteria lightly. In fact, technical criteria have to be met in order to proceed to the next stage of the tender evaluation process.
• Always read the eligibility criteria for the tender carefully. These criteria may include financial stability, prior experience, technical qualifications, and so on.
• Remember that LIC does not award contracts to the lowest bidder. Rather, compliance with the eligibility criteria is a must.
• You need to make your bid robust and convincing since there is no score of presentation. Your document needs to prove your company has the capability and capacity to complete the contract if given the opportunity. Therefore, add as much as relevant documents as possible.

LIC tenders: Commonly required documents

Most commonly required documents for LIC tenders are the same as the required documents for government tenders. Here is a list of commonly required documents for tenders:

• Fully filled-in technical bid form
• Copy of business PAN card
• Address proof of the business
• CA certified copy stating turnover of the company
• Signed copy of terms and conditions of the tender
• EPF Registration letter/certificate
• Copy of IT returns
• CA certified balance sheet and P&L statement
• Scanned copy of GST returns
• Proof of prior experience: Scanned copy of orders completed in the mentioned timeframe
• Digital signature certificate class III for digitally signing the forms
• Proofs of deposited EMD and tender fee
• Udyam registration certificate
• Detailed project plan
• Details of plant, machinery and other technical facilities such as R&D capabilities, quality assurance, testing facilities, and so on.

Concluding remarks

Although LIC is an insurance company, it has diverse procurement needs. The procurement need of the company ranges from food catering, security services, procurement of furniture, IT products, engineering works, consultancy services and so on. Therefore, it is best to check for relevant tenders from the company for your business.

One of the key advantages of tenders is that they can help you grow and make it more sustainable.