The four road transport undertakings in Karnataka will together purchase over 25 per cent of their total auto spare parts of Rs 570 crore from the State’s small and medium scale industries, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said on Tuesday. 

He was speaking at the inauguration of the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings’ (ASRTU) vendor meet organised by the Karnataka Small Scale Industries’ Association (KASSIA) in association with the State government, RIMSR-Brenau University, Georgia, US, and the ASRTU. 

The minister hoped the vendor meet would enable new entrants to know the intricacies of ASRTU’s Vendor Development Registration Scheme (VDRS), which would also help the State’s STUs to meet their requirements without any hassles. 

Vendor scheme

Chidananda M Rajamane, president, KASSIA, observed that the ASRTU’s vendor development registration scheme would help new entrants in timely completion of works. 

The process of undertaking works inspection, sample testing, field trials by the STUs requires long cycle time ranging up to 6-8 months. Any firm desiring to enter into contracts with the ASRTU, these activities, if commenced on receipt of the tenders, would delay the process of award of contract to them as compared to the firms applying for renewal/upgradation of their existing contracts, Rajamane observed. 

P S Anand Rao, executive director of ASRTU, said the agency helped provide STUs right quality auto spares at right price at right time, by establishing rate contracts with quality spare parts manufacturers. 

With the ASRTU’s approved rate contract, an auto components manufacturer did not have to participate in every individual STU tender and could directly approach any STUs in different states. Despite this advantage, the procurement of auto components through ASRTU by state transport undertakings was only around 17 per cent of the total purchases made, he said, and requested the transport minister to increase procurement of auto components by the state’s SRTUs through the ASRTU’s rate contract. 

Rate contract 

He added that the ASRTU had already written to the Union ministries of road transport and highways and finance for including the rate contract awarded by it in the approved list of central purchase organisations like the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposal. S K Patra, director (technical), ASRTU, stated that 62 STUs in the country operated 1.47 lakh buses serving 70 million passengers every day and employed nearly one million people.

Technical presentations

The inaugural session was followed by a series of technical presentations on tendering, RC system, VDRS, testing, procurement policies, panel discussion on banking needs and IT solutions for MSMEs, e-learning and skill enhancement, and supply chain and procurement for MSMEs.