| S.No. | Queries | Clarification |
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| Page 152/183
Section III- Bids Data Sheet
C. Participation of Bids
10./18.1
The amount of Bid Security shall be fixed PKR 20 Million. The currency of the Bid Security shall be: Pakistani Rupee. Bid Securing Declaration is NOT applicable
Page 22/183
Section II- Instructions to Bidders
C. Participation of Bids
18.->18.1
Pursuant to ITB 11, unless otherwise specified in the BDS, the Bidder shall furnish as part of its Bid, a Bid Security in form of fixed amount not exceeding five percent of the estimated value of procurement determined by the procuring agency and in the amount and currency specified in the BDS or Bid Securing Declaration as specified in the BDS in the format provided in Section VI (Standard Forms).
These two clauses contradict each other and are hence ambiguous. Therefore it is requested to kindly explain the reasoning behind this to avoid confusion. | As Bid Security has been specified in BDS Sr.10, so ITB 18->18.1 is not in vogue.
It is further clarified that please follow the BDS clause 10.
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| 25/184
18 Bid Security or Bid Securing Declaration
18.6 Any Bid not accompanied by a Bid Security or Bid Securing Declaration in accordance with ITB 18.1 or 18.3 shall be rejected by the Procuring Agency as non-responsive, pursuant to ITB 29.
When will the Bid Security be submitted? At Stage1 with Technical Proposal or Stage 11 with Financial Proposal?
| Please following the point 3 of Addendum / Corrigendum issued/published on December 25, 2022.
Addendum / Corrigendum can also be downloaded via http://moib.gov.pk/Downloads/Addendum-Corrigendum231222.pdf |
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| 31/184
26 Opening of Bids
26.13 "In case of Two Stage Bidding Procedure, after the evaluation and approval of technical proposal the procuring agency, shall at a time within the bid validity period, publicly open the financial proposals of the technically accepted bids only under the PPRA Rules 2004 and its corresponding Regulations.
The financial proposal of bids found technically nonresponsive shall be returned un-opened to the respective bidders subject to redress of the grievances from all tiers of grievances under the PPRA Rules 2004 and its corresponding Regulations."
How will the technically nonresponsive bidders submit Financial Proposals in a Two Stage Bidding Procedure? How will the Bidders be technically qualified in the first phase?
| Please consult the PPRA's Two Stage Bidding Procedure in consultation with the Revised RFP's Section-III, Bid Data Sheet Clause 29. |
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| 32/ 183 SECTION II: INSTRUCTION TO BIDDERS (ITBs)
E. OPENING AND EVALUATION OF BIDS
The Procuring Agency shall examine the Bid to confirm that all terms and conditions specified in the GCC and the SCC have been accepted by the Bidder without any material deviation or reservation.
How to reply to the GCC clauses? It there any SOC template to fill? Or can the bidder make the modification comments in tracking mode?
| In the Solution/Proposal Document, Bidder may mention reply after copying the Complete Clause with referencing. |
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| 21/183 SECTION II: INSTRUCTION TO BIDDERS (ITBs)
C. Preparation of Bids
b) For goods and related services that the Bidder will deliver from outside Pakistan, or for imported parts or components of goods and related services originating outside Pakistan, the Bid prices shall be quoted in Pakistani Rupees after conversion.
1- For goods and related services that the Bidder will deliver from outside Pakistan, who will bear the taxes fee such as Pakistan customs duties/import tax/GST/customs clearance etc.?
2-What the meaning for "the Bid prices shall be quoted in Pakistani Rupees after conversion"? does that mean, the bidder can quote other currency such as USD, and PA(Procuring Agency) do the conversion during bidding evaluation stage?"
| All applicable taxes, Customs duties shall be bear by the Bidder.
It is preferred to Bid in Pakistani Rupee, In case if bidder quote in any foreign currency then for the purposes of comparison of bids quoted in different currencies, the price shall be converted into a single currency specified in the bidding documents. The rate of exchange shall be the selling rate, prevailing on the date of opening of financial bids, as notified by the State Bank of Pakistan on that day. |
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| 52/183 SECTION III: BID DATA SHEET
C. Preparation of Bids
For goods offered from abroad the DDP price quoted shall be in PKR after conversion. Prices should include all applicable taxes and freight charges till the Project execution / deployment site as mentioned by the PA.
1- For goods offered from abroad, can the bidder only quote in CFR/CIF basis?
2- For the goods offered from abroad (offshore part) , who is responsible for customs clearance, customs duties , GST etc. which incurred in Pakistan?
| Please follow the bidding document. All applicable taxes, Customs clearance/duties shall be bear by the Bidder. |
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| 151/183 SECTION IX: SPECIAL CONDITIONS OF THE CONTRACT (SCC)
29.4 The Warranty Period (N) shall begin from the date of Operational Acceptance of the System or Subsystem and extend for 36 months or standard warranty provided by OEM, whichever is higher.
1-The price of this RFP should include 3 years warranty?
2- How many years maintenance and support (which after Warranty period) needed to be quoted for this RFP?
| 1. Please follow the bidding document
2. Two Years |
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| 119/183 SECTION IX: SPECIAL CONDITIONS OF THE CONTRACT (SCC)
11.4The currency or currencies in which payment is made to the Supplier under this Contract shall be specified in SCC subject to the following general principle: payment will be made in the currency or currencies in which the payment has been requested in the Supplier’s Bid.
Does that mean, PA(Procuring Agency) will make payment in USD or other currency instead of PKR for the Goods/Services portion from outside Pakistan?
| No |
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| 36/183 SECTION IX: SPECIAL CONDITIONS OF THE CONTRACT (SCC)
E. OPENING AND EVALUATION OF BIDS "(c) Deviation in payment schedule.
i) Bidders shall state their Bid price for the payment schedule outlined in the SCC. Bids will be evaluated on the basis of this base price. Bidders are, however, permitted to state an alternative payment schedule and indicate the reduction in Bid price they wish to offer for such alternative payment schedule. The Procuring Agency may consider the alternative payment schedule offered by the selected Bidder.
How to state an alternative payment schedule? And when ? During the 2nd stage i.e. in the Financial Proposal?
| Alternative payment schedule is only for the selected bidder. |
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| 96-97/183
SECTION VII: STANDARD FORMS
Supply and Installation Cost Table
In this cost table, several currency allowed to be quoted ? If like this , PA(Procuring Agency) will do the conversion by itself?
| It is preferred to Bid in Pakistani Rupee, In case if bidder quote in any foreign currency then for the purposes of comparison of bids quoted in different currencies, the price shall be converted into a single currency specified in the bidding documents. The rate of exchange shall be the selling rate, prevailing on the date of opening of financial bids, as notified by the State Bank of Pakistan on that day. |
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| 98/183
SECTION VII: STANDARD FORMS
Recurrent Cost Sub-Table [insert: identifying number] Recurrent Cost Sub-Table [insert: identifying number]
1- What is the Recurrent Cost mean? Does it mean "Annual Maintenance and Support cost" ?
If not , where to quote Annual Maintenance and Support cost" ?
2- For "Y1 to Yn", what is n ? How many years exactly needed to be quoted?
| 1. Any recurring cost i.e Subscription, Maintenance or Support cost.
2. n is 3 years within warranty and 2 years after warranty |
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| 98/183 SECTION VII: STANDARD FORMS
Recurrent Cost Sub-Table [insert: identifying number]
Note: The cost for maintenance must be quoted after expiry of the warranty period e.g. if a component is having three year warranty than the price charged for such maintenance shall be applicable after expiry of the warranty period.
In this table, what does Y1 mean? Does it mean the 1st year starting after 3 years' warranty period ?
Or it mean the 1st year from PO date? Or from Project go live date? Please kind give explanation.
| Y1 means 1st Year after the acceptability of the Product/Solution. |
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| 55/183 SECTION III: BID DATA SHEET E. Opening and Evaluation of Bids
Factors for calculation of the whole life cost:
i) Number of years for whole life cycle: 10 Years
ii) Operating costs: Please clearly mention operating cost i.e fuel and/or other input, service, unit cost, and total operational requirements
iii) Maintenance costs: Please clearly mention maintenance cost e.g., spare parts—without duplication of above 32.5
(d) or any other requirements and
iv) Rate, as a percentage, to be used to discount all annual future costs calculated under (ii) and (iii) above to present value. 1- 10 years is just Bidding evaluation by PA, but it doesn't mean Bidder need to quote for 10 years, right?
2- What 's the difference between Operating Costs and Maintenance costs?
3- for the cost i.e fuel and/or other input, service, unit cost.
for our understanding , this is not belong to Bidder's scope, right? For example, the fuel cost ,shall not be bidder's responsibility. | Yes, this does not belong to Bidder's scope. |
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| 96-97/183 SECTION VII: STANDARD FORMS
Supply and Installation Cost Table for the Unit Prices / Rates of Supplied from Abroad, why it includes [ insert: local currency] and [ insert: foreign currency A ] ?
Does that mean, the local currency is for cost of services /customs duties/ sales taxes/inland transportation etc happened in Pakistan? and foreign currency is for cost such as goods/services supplied from other countries?"
| It is preferred to Bid in Pakistani Rupee. |
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| 174| 183
4. TOR Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
11. Support MAC FRR(Fast Reroute)
This feature is unique feature of Huawei. It will exclude other supplier. In fact M-LAG has fast recover mechanism itself. Please Remove This Clause or Equivalent. Besides, please elaborate does MoIB really need to implement this feature? Or is it just mentioned to restrict competition?
| Alternative feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable. |
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| 174| 183 3. Core Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
42. Should be a Leader/Challenger by Forrester or any other International Rating Agency
174| 183 4. TOR Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
27. Should be a Leader/Challenger by Forrester or any other International Rating Agency
Please Neutralize This Clause For Equal Participation.
| Please follow the bidding document |
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| 174| 183
3. Core Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
23. May support NSH (IPv4 and IPv6)
NSH is Huawei and Cisco specification. Our suggestion is to revise this statement to ‘Support Service Chain’ to allow other brands to offer equivalent feature. Besides, please elaborate does MoIB really need to implement this feature? Or is it just mentioned to restrict competition?
| Alternative feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable.
Please follow the bidding document. |
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| 174| 183
Network for Primary Data Center Facility: -
Annexure-C.
3. Core Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
35. Supporting intelligent TCP and UDP traffic analysis will be a plus point
Are You Willing to Procure AD-DC Solution if not Please Remove this Clause. Please elaborate the use case, it will add up the cost. Besides, please elaborate does MoIB really need to implement this feature? Or is it just mentioned to restrict competition? | Only support is required as an addon. Alternative solution/feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable.
Please follow the bidding document. |
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| 174| 183
4. TOR Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
13. The switch supports micro segmentation isolation and may support NSH
"Our AD-DC solution support service chain based on VxLAN and PBR. Are You Willing to Procure AD-DC Solution if not Please Remove this Clause. Besides, please elaborate does MoIB really need to implement this feature? Or is it just mentioned to restrict competition?"
| Alternative feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable. |
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| 171| 183
Annexure-B
1. Multiprotocol Storage Requirement/Specifications
4. File system/bucket-level quotas, capacity and file quantity quotas, user- and user group based quotas, and default quotas should be supported. After a quota is set, data written by file, HDFS, and object protocols are controlled. Screenshots of the configuration page are required.
At this use case only S3 is utilized by the upper layer applications, and no other storage protocols are actually needed such as file and HDFS. There will be no unified quota use case and no across protocol access. Adding these protocols will also increase cost for the storage system. Also, this is specific to certain OEM and not equal to other vendors for participation.
Please remove: After a quota is set, data written by file, HDFS, and object protocols are controlled. Screenshots of the configuration page are required.
| Alternative solution/feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable. |
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| 171| 183
1. Multiprotocol Storage Requirement/Specifications
6. File, HDFS, and object services should support asynchronous remote replication, failover, and failback. The minimum RPO is 1 min or lower. Screenshots of the configuration page are required from configuration tools
At this use case only S3 is utilized by the upper layer applications, and no other storage protocols are actually needed such as file and HDFS. Adding these protocols will also increase cost for the storage system. There is no specific DR capabilities described in this project, so it's not required and not realizable for the RPO target. This is specific to certain OEMs and not equal to other vendors for participation. Please remove this item.
| Alternative solution/feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable.
Please follow the bidding document. |
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| 175/184 "DETAILED SPECIFICATIONS OF CATEGORY – III
Network for Primary Data Center Facility: -
Annexure-C
3. Core Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
174| 183
3. Core Switches Requirements/Specifications (Continued): -
8. Supports queue scheduling modes such as PQ, DRR, and PQ+DRR.
FC, SP WFQ | Query is unclear. Please follow the bidding document. |
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| 171| 183
1. Multiprotocol Storage Requirement/Specifications
9. File, big data, and object services should support metadata indexing. User can query metadata items such as the file name, file size, creation time, owner, and extended attributes on the management page or through REST APIs. No independent service node is required. Screenshots of the retrieval page are required from configuration tools.
Metadata indexing will be provided by 3rd party applications so no need for object storage to provide this. Please remove this item.
| Alternative solution/feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable. |
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| 171| 183
1. Multiprotocol Storage Requirement/Specifications
10. File/Big Data/Object services should use unified local or domain user authentication for unified authentication. They should be able to use unified lock management to ensure data consistency when multiple protocols read and write the same file.
"At this use case only S3 is utilized by the upper layer applications, and no other storage protocols are actually needed such as file and big data. Adding these protocols will also increase cost for the storage system. And there is no real use case for unified local or domain user authentication for unified authentication. This is specific to certain OEMs and not equal to other vendors for participation. Please remove this item."
| Alternative solution/feature providing/ensuring similar results is also acceptable. |
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| 172| 183
1. Multiprotocol Storage Requirement/Specifications
22. A world-renowned storage brand, with products listed in the Challengers or Leaders quadrant by Gartner's Magic Quadrant, provides key competitiveness ranking of similar products done by Gartner or equivalent
This is specific to certain OEMs and not equal to other vendors for participation. Please remove this item.
| Please follow the bidding document |
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| 172| 183
1. Multiprotocol Storage Requirement/Specifications
22. The proposed product should be latest and have at least seven (07) years of roadmap. Documentary evidence is mandatory. (no nearing end of life product shall be quoted)
"It is not realizable for most vendors to provide 5-10 years of roadmap. This is specific to certain OEMs and not equal to other vendors for participation. Please remove this clause."
| Please follow the bidding document |
