MUMBAI: Owing to no response, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday finally extended the deadline for its global tender for vaccine supply to Mumbai by a week. The new deadline now is May 25.
The last date for participation in the tender floated for procurement of the Covid-19 vaccine from the international market was May 18. However, after failing to get any response from global Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers the deadline was extended by the civic body for seven more days on Tuesday.
Confirming the development BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal on Tuesday said: “We have extended the last date of participation by another week giving more time to the market to respond.”
The BMC has planned to procure 10 million vaccine doses from the international market in order to speed up the vaccination drive in the city. For this, it had issued a global Expression of Interest (EoI) on May 12.
"As per the EoI conditions, the supplier will have to give the entire consignment of vaccines within three weeks from the day the work order is issued. It is open for vaccine manufacturers, their Indian partners, authorised distributors, while entities from countries sharing borders with India have been barred," said a senior BMC official.
"Those answering the EoI must have valid licences to manufacture the vaccine as well as authorisation to export it to India, while the doses must be as per ICMR and DCGI norms," the official added.
P Velrasu, the additional municipal commissioner, said, “We have not got any response yet, and so we were contemplating on extending the last date. Hence the decision to extend the date for bidding by one more week was taken on Tuesday. We expect the market to respond once we give the extension.”
Following the footsteps of BMC, even Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) and Thane Municipal Corporation are all set to join the bandwagon and procure Covid-19 vaccines from the international market.
