DH Exclusive | HPE’s 98% score in UIDAI project bid ‘shocks’ Wipro

Bengaluru-based IT services firm Wipro has expressed “shock” over the score given to HP-Enterprises (HPE) during the evaluation of bids for the Rs 1,642-crore Aadhaar-related project floated by UIDAI.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) -- a statutory body mandated to collect data on Aadhaar, had last year floated tenders for contracting a managed services infrastructure provider (MSIP) to build India’s largest private cloud for data management, which would be fully automated.

Earlier this year, the authority commenced the bid evaluation process for the project.

READ: DH Exclusive | Aadhaar-related project bid process unfair: 3 IT firms

During technical evaluation of the bids, the committee gave a score of 98 on 100 to HPE, according to a letter from Wipro sent to the Central Vigilance Commissioner and UIDAI.

“UIDAI’s main objective, all through, has been to get the open-source, community-based solution, and that has been compromised in case of HPE when they quoted commercially subscription-based/enterprise support model where the lifecycle of the code is maintained by the commercial sponsor,” Wipro said in its letter, which is in possession of DH.

Wipro further said: “The offer by HPE has been given preference over the vendor-neutral open framework proposed by Wipro and shockingly has been awarded 98 out of 100 marks.”

The marks pertain to the technical assessment, which makes up 70% of the project evaluation. On the other hand, the commercial assessment makes up the balance 30% of the total bid assessment.

According to government sources, this kind of score suggests the bid is flawless, which according to them is near impossible. “Getting a score of 98% to a project during technical evaluation makes it completely flawless -- which is impossible. I have hardly seen such a thing in my career,” a government source, wishing anonymity, said.

UIDAI did not respond to queries sent by DH, while Wipro declined to comment. HPE said they have nothing more to add to their earlier statement. In response to an earlier query, the company said: “…will work towards the successful execution of this critical project of national importance.”

Earlier this week, DH reported that the three tech majors -- Wipro, IBM, and Dell -- in various letters to the CVC and UIDAI, had raised objections to the participation of HP-Enterprise in the bidding process.