(By Apurva Chaudhary and Vikas SN) After announcing its plans to enter the e-commerce segment last week, The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which manages the online rail ticketing for the Indian Railways, has floated a tender to shortlist a white label solution provider for this initiative. The company claimed that it currently has a registered user base of more than 26 million users. Fees: As per the tender (pdf), bidders can submit their tenders along with a demand draft worth Rs 2 lakh as earnest money deposit and Rs 1000 as tender fees before March 19, 2013. Once IRCTC awards the contract, the earnest money deposit of unsuccessful bidders will be returned without any interest, within 90 days after the tender is finalized. It will also return the earnest money deposit fo the successful bidder without interest, provided the bidder furnishes the requisite Security Deposit to IRCTC. Selection Criteria - The bidder should be an established e-commerce or IT company and should be in existence for more than an year. - They should have a minimum annual turnover of Rs 40 crore from B2C e-commerce business in the last financial year. - They must have a catalog from over 500 brands and suppliers and offer merchandise from minimum five product categories across Books, Mobile, Electronics, home furnishing, apparel, fashion accessories, jewelry and footwear among others. - They must have deployed a white label solution involving commercial transactions to at least three white label partners in the current financial year and the last two financial years (2010-11 and 2011-12). They must have a minimum of one…
