Grinder manufacturers urge to ease tender norms

COIMBATORE: With the State government on Wed­nesday floating global tenders for procuring wet grinders for free distribution to the poor as promised in the AIADMK’s poll manifesto, manufacturers in Coimbatore have appealed for relaxation of tender norms.Office bearers of the Coimbatore Wet Grinders and Accessories Manufacturers Association (COWMA) said that it would be difficult for the member-companies to meet the tender norms. The Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) has floated the tender for purchasing 25 lakh units of ‘Table Top Wet Grinders’ as well as similar quantity of electric food mixers and table fans. As per the qualification criteria, the bidders must be a manufacturer of table top wet grinder at least for a period of one-year as on May 31 and should possess valid registration for the manufacture. The tenderer shall either be a single party or a consortium of maximum of three parties. Most importantly, the norms mandate that “the annual turnover of the bidder in any one of the previous three financial/accounting year, shall be not less than `5 crore. In the case of consortium bidder with three members, the lead member shall meet the turnover of `2.5 crore and other two members shall meet the turnover of `1.25 crore each. The tenderer should have a minimum cash credit facility of `3 crore exclusively for this work duly certified by the banker.” However, COWMA secretary D Krishnamoorthy argued that “all the wet grinder makers in Coimbatore are micro units with less than `1.5 crore turn over. As the industries have to pay Central Excise if the turnover is over `1.5 crore, many promoters actually start a second unit.” Therefore, it was not possible to meet the government’s norm that the manufacturer should have an annual turnover of `2.5 crore.