Oberthur Technologies, a French company, is likely to get contract for production and distribution of Smart National Identity Card (Smart NID) under an Election Commission project.
The tender evaluation committee has already made the recommendation in this regard for preparing 9 crore Smart NIDs involving Tk 796.26 crore, according to official sources. Meanwhile, the EC has put forward the bidder’s tender offer to the Cabinet Purchase Committee (CPC) for its approval.
“If the CPC approves the EC’s proposal in its Sunday’s scheduled meeting, it’ll be the government’s final nod for appointing the French company to do a very sensitive and important job likeproduction and distribution of Smart NID,” said a top official at the Cabinet Division.
As per the Public Procurement Act, any public purchase proposal costing above Tk 50 crore shall have to be approved by the CPC and it will be treated as the final approval.
Official sources said the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) has been providing financial support to implement the Smart NID project titled ‘Identification System for Enhancing Access to Services (ISEA)’.
About the project, EC secretary M Sirajul Islam said the current National ID’s poor security features has prompted the EC to go for introducing the Smart NID.
“The existing NID, a laminated card, is very easy to copy and prepare a fake one due to its poor security features. Many unscrupulous people are taking advantage of enjoying the service by using fake
NID,” he said in a summary sent to the Cabinet Division.
But the Smart NID, according to the EC secretary, will have more than 25 security features that will not be possible to copy and produce a fake one. As a result, it will help accurately identifying a citizen using as a national identity document, he mentioned. Besides, Sirajul Islam said, the proposed Smart NID will provide a scope to examine a citizen’s identity offline as well.
“Ultimately, the new card will help ensure accountability in taking public and private services and it will establish good governance through enhancing the e-governance,” the EC secretary said.
Official sources said the EC invited international competitive bidding (ICBM) to implement Smart NID project between 2011 and 2016.
A total of 4 international bidders submitted their bids for the project.
Finally, three French companies came out to be responsive bidders. Of them, Oberthur Technologies’ was found to be the lowest competitive bidder considering its technical and financial offers.
As a lowest bidder, the French company quoted a read out price at Tk 658.80 crore to produce 70 million Smart NID against the requirement of 90 million.
But to meet the requirement of 90 million Smart NID, the tender evaluation committee made a calculation of an additional Tk 133.23 crore cost for additional 20 million cards maintaining the same ratio of per unit cost of a card.
As a result, the tender evaluation committee recommended a total cost of the 90 million Smart NID at Tk 796.53 crore.
However, with a small revision, the Oberthur Technologies also agreed with the calculated cost and confirmed its acceptance over the deal. The World Bank also gave its concurrence to the revised proposal.
