Tracking a government order that takes months

A government order is rarely lost at the bid. It is lost in the middle, somewhere between the financial opening and the payment, while the file moves between sections, the officer handling it is transferred, and your own salesperson changes jobs. Keep one record for each order, anchored on the department's file number rather than on a person. Write down who holds the file now, when you last spoke and what was said, and the next action with a date. Every call or visit ends by filling in that last line.

Where government orders go missing

In Chandigarh a supplier can be selling to the UT Administration, two state governments and their boards and universities, each with its own process. On paper the steps look much the same, from technical evaluation to the release of your earnest money, and the list further down follows them. Each step sits with a different desk.

What goes wrong is ordinary. The officer who knew your bid is posted to another department. The file goes to accounts and nobody on your side knows. Your salesperson leaves, and the phone held the only record of who said what. Six months later the owner remembers that "Sharma ji had it", and Sharma ji no longer does.

The file card

Give every live order one card, on paper, in a sheet, or in a CRM. The fields are the same.

Order and tender reference:
Department, section and portal:
File number (and e-Office number, if used):
Our letters: date and diary number of each
Officer now holding the file: name, designation, since when
Dealing assistant: name, desk, phone
Stage:
Last contact: date, who, what was said
Next action: what, who, by when
Money held: EMD, performance security, bill amount

Three fields do most of the work. The file number survives every transfer, so every letter you write should quote it. The dealing assistant is the person who actually moves the file and knows where it is today; the officer signs, but the assistant can tell you what is missing. And money held reminds you that your earnest money, your security deposit and your bill wait as long as the order does.

What to do at each stage

1. After submission: note the portal, the bid reference and every date in the tender document. The first next action is the technical opening date.
2. Clarifications: answer in writing, by the date given, through the channel the tender names. Record the diary number.
3. Financial opening and negotiation: if you are called, send someone who can decide on price, and note what the minutes record.
4. Approval: the quiet stretch. Write once after the date the department gave, if it passes. Do not ring every few days.
5. Supply or work order: check every line against your bid before you acknowledge it, and lodge any performance security on time.
6. Delivery and inspection: get the challan signed and stamped, the inspection or acceptance report completed, and copies of both on file.
7. Bill: attach every document the order lists, record the diary number, and find out which accounts desk it went to.
8. Release: write for the EMD and the security deposit when they fall due, quoting the reference.

For example: the order that was "with Sharma ji"

This is an invented case. A firm in Chandigarh's Industrial Area supplies and installs laboratory furniture, and bids for a government college's new science block. It comes out lowest, at about ₹38 lakh. Everyone in the firm refers to the order as "Sharma ji's file", after the officer who handled the evaluation.

Sharma ji is transferred. For weeks the firm rings his mobile, and he politely says it is no longer with him. Nobody has written down the file number or the dealing assistant's name. When the work order finally arrives and the furniture is installed, the bill sits in accounts because the installation certificate signed by the college was never attached. Payment arrives eleven months after the bid, and the EMD from the earlier lost bid is released only partly, after a deduction.

The firm's first move is to make a card. The file number turns up on its own acknowledgement letter. A letter goes to the new officer quoting it and the firm's earlier correspondence, and the dealing assistant's name goes on the card. The bill checklist is now copied from the work order itself before anything is submitted. On the same sweep through old papers, the firm finds the EMD from a bid it lost two years earlier, still unclaimed, and writes for it.

How often to follow up without becoming a nuisance

Follow the department's dates, not your sales target. Before a date the department has given you, do not chase. After it passes, send one letter on letterhead, quoting the file number, asking whether anything is needed from you. Visit when you have something to hand over.

Keep everything in writing where you can. A phone call leaves no trace in the file, and the next officer will read only what is in it. Do not go over the dealing assistant's head without good reason; you will need that desk for the next order too. And never offer anything to move a file along. It is wrong, and it can end your standing with that department.

For small direct purchases on GeM, the portal shows much of the status itself. Keep the card for what the portal does not show: who you spoke to and what they said.

When a sheet stops being enough

A shared sheet works for a handful of live files. Once several people handle government orders, or the files span many departments, move the card into a CRM. Use the stages above as its stage list, and add one rule: no record is saved without a next action and a date. Read all the cards together at the start of each working week, and question any whose next action is in the past.

Two blanks to fill this afternoon

List every government order you have open, including bills unpaid and deposits not yet returned, and try to fill in the file number and the dealing assistant for each. The blanks are where the risk is. Our Chandigarh page lists government orders that take months among the city's problems, RFP and tender management is the related service, and you can tell us what you need.