Lowest Evaluated Tender — evaluation explained.

A common misunderstanding: “PPR 2008 awards the contract to the lowest bidder.” That’s almost right — but the operative phrase in PPR 2008 Rule 80 is Lowest Evaluated Tender, not Lowest Quoted Tender. The difference matters. Public Procurement Rules 2008 Rule 80(1)

Example: Bidder A quotes BDT 4.5 crore but the evaluator finds three arithmetic errors in the BOQ totalling BDT 18 lakhs in their favour. Evaluated price becomes BDT 4.68 crore. Bidder B quotes BDT 4.6 crore with no errors. Bidder B wins despite the higher quoted price.

The legal basis is PPR 2008 Rule 80(1): “The Tender ascertained as substantially responsive to the requirements of the Tender Document and that has the lowest evaluated cost shall be selected for the award of the contract.”

Stage 1 — Examination of Tenders (Rule 80.5)

Every bid is opened publicly at the time stated in the ITB. Late bids are rejected at the opening — they are physically not opened. Bid security must be attached in correct form. Bid must be signed by the authorised signatory. Required forms (Tech-1 through Tech-9) must all be present. A missing form or unsigned page voids the bid.

Stage 2 — Eligibility (Rule 81)

The evaluator checks: legal status (firm exists, valid trade licence, TIN, BIN), no conflict of interest, no debarment, and specific qualifications (experience years, turnover threshold, equipment list). Mandatory criteria failing any one disqualifies. Scored qualification criteria accumulate into a technical score. Public Procurement Rules 2008 Rule 81

Stage 3 — Substantial Responsiveness (Rule 80.6)

A bid is “substantially responsive” if it conforms to all material requirements without material deviation. The standard: PPR 2008 Rule 80(6) — “A substantially responsive Tender is one that conforms to all the terms, conditions, and specifications of the Tender Document, without material deviation, reservation, or omission.”

Stage 4 — Technical Evaluation (Rule 81.4)

For consulting services, complex goods, and Design-Build, bids receive a technical score out of 100. Typical consulting weights: firm experience 25, methodology 30, key personnel 35, local presence 10. Minimum threshold typically 75/100. For simple goods/works, technical evaluation is binary (responsive or not).

Stage 5 — Financial Evaluation (Rule 82)

For goods and simple works: lowest evaluated price wins, after arithmetic correction (unit price prevails over total) and currency conversion. For consulting: QCBS (Quality and Cost Based Selection — typically 0.8 / 0.2 weighting), QBS, or LCS depending on what the ITB specifies. Public Procurement Rules 2008 Rule 82

PPR 2008 doesn’t have a single national tie-break rule, but standard practice (codified in most procuring entities’ SOPs):

1. Time of submission — earlier bid wins (submit hours before deadline, not minutes)
2. Higher technical score wins (where applicable)
3. Greater experience in the specific category wins
4. Coin toss in front of all bidders — witnessed and recorded

1. Missing bid security — surprisingly common. The bidder has the bank guarantee but forgets to attach it, or attaches a draft BG instead of the issued one. Always verify the security appears in the bid bundle before submission.
2. Wrong bid security amount— calculated from your bid price (wrong) instead of the procuring entity’s estimate (right). Usually under by 0.5%.
3. Not signing every BOQ page — some evaluators are flexible, some are not. Sign every page.
4. Currency confusion — multi-currency bids must have a documented commercial reason for each currency component.
5. Helpful deviations— “We will deliver in 45 days instead of 60” can be treated as a material deviation. Stick to ITB requirements unless deviation is specifically invited.
6. BOQ footnote misses— “rate inclusive of VAT”, “rate exclusive of mobilisation” — missing these flips your evaluated price 10–15%.
7. Technical score arithmetic errors — claiming 7 years of experience when supporting documents only support 5.

The PPR 2008 evaluation framework is unforgiving on the specific points listed above. Our product specifically targets the failure modes:

• Eligibility scoring — for any tender ZIP, we compute the result against ITB Section 3 with specific failure points highlighted
• BOQ extraction with arithmetic verification — totals, subtotals, and unit-price-vs-total inconsistencies flagged
• Substantial responsiveness check — we surface deviations from ITB norms in the bid draft
• Technical-score forecasting for QCBS tenders