No one likes Oil India's 7475-lkm 2D BEC terms
Don't expect to win if you can't send us on a foreign trip! Or if you plan to use only Indian staff and facilities to process our 2D.
That's the twin-message coming from Oil India to anyone interested in a contract to process 7475-lkm 2D from unexplored areas of north-east India. Two companies contacted by this report accuse Oil India of brazenly ignoring Narendra Modi's celebrated 'Make in India' policy by actively encouraging data processing outside India and forcing Indian companies to employ staff from their foreign-based JV technical partner.
"One (Oil India) guy told me we have very little chance of winning because he wouldn't be able to travel overseas if we won the contract," reports one bidder, with a data processing centre in India. "ONGC makes it mandatory for seismic to be processed in India but Oil India has removed that constraint from this tender." Another contractor is equally damning.
"The Bid Evaluation Criteria for this tender was screwed up so we didn't participate," he said. "Oil India says if you qualify based on a technical collaboration with an overseas company you must use people from your (overseas) partner's company.
This makes no sense; it's like saying your (Indian) people are incompetent." Not everyone is upset. "Overseas companies might have better skilled manpower, resources and equipment," says an analyst.
"It has nothing to do with foreign holidays."