REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR EMPANNELMENT

Information Technology Department
Head Office, National Housing Bank
Core 5-A, 3 rd Floor , India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road ,
New Delhi – 110 003
Phone: 011-24611070
E-Mail: souravs@nhb.org.in

BID DETAILS
1.	Date of commencement of sale of Bidding Documents	09/02/2008
2.	Last date and time for sale of Bidding Documents	29/02/2008 17.00 hrs
3.	Last date and time for receipt of Bidding Documents	29/02/2008 17.00 hrs
4.	Date and Time of Technical Bid Opening	03/03/2008 12.00 hrs
5.	Cost of RFP	Rs. 5,000/- (non refundable)
6.	Earnest Money Deposit Amount	Rs.50,000/- (Rs. Fifty Thousand Only)
7.	Place of opening of Bids	National Housing Bank, Information Technology Department Head Office Core 5-A, 3rd Floor,India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi – 110003

Note: Technical Bids will be opened in the presence of bidders who choose to attend as above.

INSTRUCTION TO BIDDER

National Housing Bank

National Housing Bank (NHB), a statutory organisation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India. NHB is an Apex Financial Institution formed under the Act of the Parliament with a mandate for Promotion, Development and Regulation of the Housing Finance Sector.

Apart from regulating the housing finance companies (HFC), NHB also extends financial support by way equity participation in HFCs and refinance facility to financial institutions such as Banks, HFCs, Co-operative Sector Institutions, Housing Agencies, etc. benefiting the masses both in urban and rural areas.

The head office of NHB is located in New Delhi and it has a regional office located at Mumbai and Representative office located at Hyderabad.

1. PURPOSE

1.1 National Housing Bank (hereinafter referred to as the Bank) with Head Office at New Delhi is interested to hire assistance support engineer from empanelled vendors for development/maintenance/testing of software applications, as and when required. Bank’s IT Department is involved in development/maintenance/testing of various software applications for computerizing different work areas. IT Department has its own in-house development team comprising of experienced IT officials. The needs of bank for development of in-house software are comparatively higher than its strength in software development cell. As such bank is planning to create a panel of software company/firm that will supply qualified IT professionals for in-house software development/maintenance/testing in our bank.

1.2 The purpose of RFP is to solicit proposals from qualified bidders for providing qualified IT professionals who will give assistance to our in-house development/ maintenance/testing team during development/maintenance/testing of in-house software in our bank.

1.3 Technical bids are invited from bidders for providing IT professionals with expertise in software development/ maintenance/testing as per the terms and conditions mentioned here under.

2. SCOPE OF WORK

• IT professionals will work for development// maintenance/testing of in-house software as per requirement specification given by the bank.
• IT professionals will work in one/more projects under the supervision of bank’s officials.
• Hardware and software platforms will be finalized by bank for these software projects.
• IT professionals will be supplied purely on contractual basis for specific period at the rate agreed by the bank and the short listed bidder.
• Bank will only deal with the short listed vendor. Bank will not make any direct payment to the developer of vendor’s side.
• The engineer which the vendor will provide should be a permanent employee of the company.
• The tender is for empanelment of vendors for providing IT professionals to work with Bank’s official towards software development// maintenance/testing. Commercial quotation will be called from the empanelled vendors only on need basis. Each time, offer will be given to L1 vendor to provide assistance support. Bank will conduct interview for selecting assistance support engineer as per its requirements. If the L1 vendor does not able to provide suitable professional (determined by bank only) within 15 days of placement of offer, vendor empanelment may be cancelled.

However, after selection if it is found that the engineer/engineers are not suitable for the job, the vendor. will provide suitable substitute engineer within one week’s notice period.

3. REQUIREMENTS

Detailed requirement specification enclosed in Annexure-C.

4. COST OF BIDDING

The bidder shall bear all the costs associated with the preparation and submission of bid and bank will in no case be responsible or liable for these costs regardless of the conduct or outcome of the bidding process.

5. BIDDING DOCUMENT

The bidder is expected to examine all instructions, forms, terms and conditions and technical specifications in the Bidding Document. Submission of a bid not responsive to the Bidding Document in every respect will be at the bidder’s risk and may result in the rejection of its bid without any further reference to the bidder.

6. AMENDMENTS TO BIDDING DOCUMENTS

At any time prior to the last Date and Time for submission of bids, the Bank may, for any reason, modify the Bidding Document by amendments at the sole discretion of the bank. All amendments will be either uploaded in the website or shall be delivered by hand / post / courier or through e-mail or faxed to all prospective bidders, who have received the bidding document and will be binding on them. For this purpose bidders must provide name of the contact person, mailing address, telephone number and FAX numbers on the covering letter sent along with the bids. In order to provide, prospective bidders, reasonable time to take the amendment if any, into account in preparing their bid, the Bank may, at its discretion, extend the deadline for submission of bids.

7. PERIOD OF VALIDITY

Bids shall remain valid for Six Months from the date of bid opening prescribed by the Bank. A bid valid for shorter period shall be rejected by the bank as non-responsive.

8. BID CURRENCY

Prices shall be expressed in Indian Rupees only.

9. BID EARNEST MONEY

The bidder has to submit the bid earnest money of Rs.50,000 (refundable after 2 years of empanelment for successful bidders and after finalizing the selection process for unqualified bidders) (Rs. Fifty Thousand only) in the form of demand draft favouring National Housing Bank, payable at Delhi. EMD draft should be with the technical bid.

10. BIDDING PROCESS (TECHNICAL BID ONLY)

For the purpose of the present job, The bidder will have to submit the Technical bid only in one red lakh-sealed envelope (wax seal), duly super scribing “IT PROFESSIONALS FOR IN-HOUSE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT/ MAINTENANCE/TESTING/ ASSISTANCE SUPPORT“,

“TECHNICAL BID” TECHNICAL BID will not contain any pricing or commercial information.

The bid shall be typed or written in indelible ink and shall be signed by the Bidder or a person duly authorized by him. The authorization shall be indicated by a written power of attorney accompanying the Bid. All pages of the Bid shall be initialed by the person(s) signing the Bid.

The Bid shall contain no interlineations, erasures or overwriting except as necessary to correct errors made by the Bidder, in which case corrections shall be initialed by the person(s) signing the Bid.

11. SUBMISSION OF BIDS

The bidders shall duly seal the envelope with RED LAKH SEAL (Wax Seal). The bid should be addressed to Bank at the following address up to the time and date mentioned on page 2 of this document.

D.G.M.
National Housing Bank,
Information Technology Department
Head Office
Core 5-A, 3rd Floor, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road,
New Delhi – 110003

12. LAST DATE AND TIME FOR SUBMISSION OF BIDS

Bids must be received by the Bank at the address specified in the Bid Document not later than the specified date and time as specified in the Bid Document or as extended by the bank as per clause 6. In the event of the specified date of submission of bids being declared a holiday for the Bank, the bids will be received up to the appointed time on next working day.

13. LATE BIDS

Any bid received by the Bank after the deadline for submission of bids will be rejected and/or returned unopened to the Bidder, if so desired by him.

14. MODIFICATIONS AND/OR WITHDRAWAL OF BIDS

• Bids once submitted will be treated, as final and no further correspondence will be entertained on this.
• No bid will be modified after the deadline for submission of bids.
• No bidder shall be allowed to withdraw the bid, if the bidder happens to be a successful bidder.

15. CONTENT OF DOCUMENTS TO BE SUBMITTED

15.1 Documents required in Technical Bid Envelope (Sealed Cover):

1. Bidder’s information as per part “I” of Annexure-‘B’.
2. Service Information as per part “II” of Annexure –‘B’.
3. Undertaking Letter as per part “III” of Annexure –‘B’.

16. BID OPENING AND EVALUATION

The Bank will open the bid, in the presence of Bidders representative who choose to attend, at the time and date mentioned in Bid document at the address mentioned at clause-11 titled “Submission of Bids”.

The bidders or their representatives who are present shall sign register evidencing their attendance. In the event of the specified date of bid opening being declared a holiday for Bank, the bids shall be opened at the appointed time and place on next working day.

Bidders satisfying the technical requirements as determined by the Bank and accepting the terms and conditions of this document shall be short-listed for empanelment. Bank reserve right to accept or reject any technology proposed by the bidder without assigning any reason thereof. Decision of the Bank in this regard shall be final and binding on the bidders.

16.1 Evaluation Criteria for the Bidding Process

The bids received from the firms would be evaluated on the basis of their technical competencies. The technical competencies would be evaluated first and only the firms having the requisite qualifying technical score would be eligible for being empanelled.

Technical Bids

Criteria and Point system for the evaluation of the Technical bids are as under:

	Criteria Points	(Max Marks)
1. Registration Certificate from Registrar of Firms / Company		Max Marks 10
Proprietorship Partnership Pvt. Ltd. Co. Ltd. Company (Public) * No Registration applicable for Individual Proprietorship firm	03 03 07 10
2. List of Clients (To whom Assistant/Consultancy Support have been provided towards software development project) (Only currently valid contracts (within last 5 years) considered for points award)		Max Marks 30
For 5 or more in Govt. Sector / PSU/Banks/FIs For 3 or More Govt. Sector / PSU/Banks/FIs For less then 3 Govt. Sector / PSU/Banks/FIs Private clients	30 20 10 00
3. Satisfactory Services Certificate (For providing Assistant/Consultancy Support towards software development project) by atleast two Clients (Should be current and valid)		Max Marks 10
Satisfactory Services Certificate by two Clients Satisfactory Services Certificate by one Client Satisfactory Services Certificate by none	10 5 00
4. Track of being in the Business (providing Assistant/Consultancy Support towards software development project through deputing their professionals) atleast 3 years		Max Marks 10
Being in the Business for atleast 3 years Being in the Business for 1 to 3 years Being in the Business for less then 1 year	10 5 00
5. ISO Certification or CMM level-II certification For Software Development area
If Yes If No	10 00	Max Marks 10
6. Technical & Qualified Manpower (Minimum Qualification: B.E/B.Tech(Computer science /IT/ Electronics); MCA/MCS;M.E/M.Tech (Computer science/IT/Electronics)		Max Marks 20
50-75 Qualified & Experienced Engineers 75-100 Qualified & Experienced Engineers 100-150 Qualified & Experienced Engineers 151 & above Qualified & Experienced Engineers	08 12 15 20
7. Turnover for Last 3 years		Max Marks 10
Rs. 3 Crore to 5 crore Rs.5 Crore to 8 Rs. 8 Crore to 10 crore Rs. 10 Crore and above	04 06 08 10

Bidders have to provide copies of supporting documents against each criteria mentioned above, without which bid may be rejected.

The minimum qualification score for the Technical Bid for empanelment would be 70.

17. CLARIFICATIONS OF BIDS

To assist in the examination, evaluation and comparison of bids the bank may, at its discretion, ask the bidder for clarification and response shall be in writing and no change in the price or substance of the bid shall be sought, offered or permitted.

18. PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION

The Bank will examine the bids to determine whether they are complete, whether any computational errors have been made, whether required information has been provided as underlined in the bid document, whether the documents have been properly signed, and whether bids are generally in order.

The bid determined as not in order as per the specifications will be rejected by the bank.

19. CONTACTING THE BANK

Any effort by bidder to influence the bank in the bank’s bid evaluation, bid comparison or contract award decision may result in the rejection of the Bidders’ bid. Bank’s decision will be final and without prejudice and will be binding on all parties.

20. BANK’S RIGHT TO ACCEPT OR REJECT ANY BID OR ALL BIDS

The bank reserves the right to accept or reject any bid and annul the bidding process and reject all bids at any time prior to award of contract, without thereby incurring any liability to the affected bidder or bidders or any obligation to inform the affected bidder or bidders of the ground for the bank’s action.

Further, empanelment of vendors does not assure that service contract will be issued to the vendor/vendors for assistance support. Separate Commercial quotation will be asked from empanelled vendors as and when services will be required.

21. SIGNING OF CONTRACT.

The successful bidder(s) to be called as vendor, shall be required to enter into a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the Bank, within 15 days of the award of the service order (when provided) or within such extended period as may be specified by the bank.

22. NON DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT.

A non-disclosure agreement would be signed between the bank and the organization whosoever is providing assistance support to in-house software development/ maintenance/testing team.

23. VALIDITY OF EMPANELMENT.

Two Years from the date of empanelment or as decided by the Bank.

24. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.

Intellectual Property and Ownership: All Intellectual Property Rights in the works, developed hereunder, including any software and documentation, developed and any additional or new development or inventions made in the course of performance of services hereunder by the company or its personnel involved in the project of the Bank shall absolutely belong to National Housing Bank.

25. SOURCE CODE.

Source Code: Source code of the software will be exclusive property of National Housing Bank. Bank shall remain the exclusive owner of its proprietary information and all patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademark and other intellectual property rights therein.

26. PENALTY IF SERVICES ARE NOT PROVIDED.

Any delay in providing the supply and services shall attract penalty besides cancellation of order with consequences as provided herein below:

Penalty for delay

Failure to provide professional within 10 days from placement of order shall attract penalty at the rate of 1% per day, maximum up to 15% of the total cost of the contract, for the effective duration/period of delay. This amount shall be deducted from the bill/payments to be made to the company. Delay more than 15 days may lead the cancellation of order and the vendor may be black listed by the Bank. In that case empanelment will be cancelled. EMD is liable for forfeiture in such cases.

27. Payment criteria

• After awarding the service contract to any organization, if the services of the assistance support engineer are required on Sunday or holiday the company would be compensated proportionately on the basis of man month rate.
• After getting the service contract, if the professional deputed by the vendor, will be absent on any of the working days of the Bank upto a maximum period of 10 days, proportionate amount on the basis of man month rate will be deducted. Beyond 10 days the company would make alternate arrangements and shall depute another assistance engineer.

28. BACKGROUND REFERENCE CHECK IN RESPECT OF PROFESSIONALS PROVIDED.

The company will conduct the background reference of all employees whoever are being deputed at ours for providing assistance support to in-house software development team.

———XXXXX———

Annexure ‘A’

Pre Qualification Criteria:

1. The bidder should have at least 50 IT professionals having one of the following qualifications in its roll. (An undertaking to this effect should be provided by the bidder)

• B.E/B.Tech(Computer science/IT/Electronics); MCA/MCS;M.E/M.Tech (Computer science/IT/Electronics)
• List of names and qualification of IT professionals to be attached.

2. The bidder should have at least 10 IT professionals in each area of expertise mentioned in PART-II of Annexure-B (II.2 Information about IT Professionals).

3. The company should have undertaken software development projects in banking or financial institutions (Documentary proof to be provided). The application package should have at least 30 forms and 20 reports.

4. The bidder should be in software development business for at least 3 years.

5. The bidder should have Technical support office at National Capital Region (NCR).

6. The turnover of bidding company (not parent company) for the last three financial years must exceed Rs. 3 Crores every year (Documentary proof to be provided).

Note1: Bidders are to submit documentary proof to establish the qualification of the above mentioned criteria.

Note1: Bidders fulfilling all pre-qualification criteria will only be considered for further technical evaluation. Otherwise the bids will be rejected.

Annexure ‘B’

PART – I: Bidder Information

Please provide following information about the Company (Attach separate sheet if required): –

S. No.	Information	Particulars / Response
1.	Company Name
2.	Date of Incorporation
3.	Company Head Office / Registered Office and Addresses Contact Person(s) Phone Fax E-mail Website
4.	Provide the range of services /options offered by you covering service description and different schemes available for: Customization Testing Implementation Support Post-implementation Support Ongoing Support for:- AMC Helpdesk Training Documentation Others (specify)	Yes / No / Comments (if option is ‘No’)
5.	Any pending or past litigation (within three years)? If yes please give details Also mention the details of claims and complaints received in the last three years (About the Company / Software that are sold / licensed by the company).	Yes / No / Comments (if option is ‘No’)
6.	Please mention turnover for last three years and include the copies of balance Sheet in support of it.	Year Turnover Profit/Loss (-) 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07

Signature of Bidder

PART – II:

II.1 Company’s Technical HR profile

The following information should be provided.

S. No.	Information Required	Particulars / Response
1.	IT professionals Expertise area Average experience No. of professionals having 1. B.E/B.Tech(Computer science/IT/Electronics) 2. MCA/MCS 3. M.E/M.Tech(Computer science/IT/Electronics) 4. Oracle certified professionals. 5. MCSE/MCSD 6. JAVA certified professionals.
2.	Major projects implemented (5 major projects)
3.	Language and development environment in which major projects carried out.
4.	Name of the software development projects implemented in banking and financial institutions

II.2 Information about IT Professionals

The following information should be provided.

Area of Expertise	Development Experience (in years)	No. of IT Professionals available
SQL Server (2000 and higher version) as backend and VB.net as front-end and well conversant in ASP, HTML, XML script and development of web-based applications (Windows Operating System).	More than 2 years
SQL Server (2000 and higher version) as backend / ORACLE (9i, 10G and higher version) and java technologies for front-end and well conversant in JSP, HTML, XML script and development of web-based applications in Windows, UNIX, LINUX Operating System etc.	More than 2 years
ORACLE (9i, 10G and higher version) as backend and Developer 2000 (D2K-6i and higher version) as front-end in Windows, UNIX, LINUX Operating System etc.	More than 2 years
ORACLE (9i, 10G and higher version) as backend and ORACLE10G (application server) i.e. well conversant in web-based/browser based applications in Windows, UNIX, LINUX Operating System etc.	More than 2 years
Expertise in software testing.	More than 2 years

We confirm that, all the details mentioned above are true and correct and if the bank observes any misrepresentation of facts on any matter at any stage of evaluation, the bank has the right to reject the proposal and disqualify us from the process.

We hereby acknowledge and unconditionally accept that the bank can at its absolute discretion apply whatever criteria it deems appropriate, not just limiting to those criteria set out in the RFP document, in short listing of vendors for providing software solution.

We also acknowledge the information that this bid is valid for a period of six months, for the short-listing purpose, from the date of expiry of the last date for submission of bid.

We undertake to provide required number of professionals who are on the roll of the company for the last one year with requisite qualifications and experience as mentioned in Annexure-C of the RFP.

SIGNATURE OF VENDOR WITH SEAL

NAME OF THE AUTHORIZED SIGNATORY

PART – III:

Letter to be submitted by bidder along with bid documents

To
The D.G.M.
National Housing Bank,
Information Technology Department
Head Office Core 5-A,
3rd Floor, India Habitat Centre,
Lodhi Road, New Delhi – 110003

Sir

Reg: Our bid for In-house software development Assistance Support

We submit our Bid Document herewith.

If our Bid for the above job is accepted, we undertake to enter into and execute at our cost, when called upon by the bank to do so, a contract in the prescribed form. Unless and until a formal contract is prepared and executed, this bid together with your written acceptance thereof shall constitute a binding contract between us.

We understand that if our Bid is accepted, we are to be jointly and severally responsible for the due performance of the contract.

We understand that you not bound to accept the lowest or any bid received by you, and you may reject all or any bid; you may accept or entrust the entire work to one vendor or divide the work to more than one vendor without assigning any reason or giving any explanation whatsoever.

We understand that the names of short listed bidders for empanelment shall be communicated to the bidders either over phone/e-mail/letter.

Dated at ______ / _______ day of _______ 200_.

Yours faithfully
For ________________________
Signature ___________________
Name ______________________
Address _____________________

___________________
(Authorised Signatory)

Annexure-‘C’

Expertise in the following fields is required:

• SQL Server (2000 and higher version) as backend and VB.net as front-end and well conversant in ASP.Net, ASP, HTML, XML script and development of web-based applications (Windows Operating System).
• SQL Server (2000 and higher version) / ORACLE (9i, 10G and higher version) as backend and java technologies for front-end and well conversant in JSP, HTML, XML script and development of web-based applications in Windows, UNIX, LINUX Operating System etc.
• ORACLE (9i, 10G and higher version) as backend and Developer 2000 (D2K-6i and higher version) as front-end in Windows, UNIX, LINUX Operating System etc.
• ORACLE (9i, 10G and higher version) as backend and ORACLE10G (application server) i.e. well conversant in web-based/browser based applications in Windows, UNIX, LINUX Operating System etc.
• Expertise in software testing.

Qualifications of IT professionals should be either of the following:

• B.E/B.Tech (Computer science/IT/Electronics)
• MCA/MCS
• M.E/M.Tech (Computer science/IT/Electronics)

Certifications Required:

• Oracle certification for application development in ORACLE.
• Microsoft certified software developer/software engineer (MCSD/MCSE) certification for the application development in SQL server, VB.net / ASP.Net and ASP environment.
• JAVA certification for application development in JAVA.
• SUN certification for working in UNIX/SUN SOLARIS operating systems.
• CISA certification for software testing professional.

Experience:

The experience has to be categorized into categories:

• Post qualification organizational experience – more than 2 years in software development/for developers and testing for software testing personnels.
• Experience in educational institution as faculty will not be considered.