East Coast Railway takes lead in scrap disposal to safeguard environment

Scrap disposal in the East Coast Railway (ECoR), through e-Auction, re-started immediately after the 'Unlock' phase began in June 2020.

In June, a total of 11 e-Auctions have been conducted by ECoR, including all the three divisions. In July also, six e-Auctions have been conducted to date, the ECoR stated in a release.

"e-Auction process is completely online at ECoR. The materials management department of East Coast Railway is doing e-Auction through its dedicated IREPS (Indian Railways E-Procurement System) portal since 2013, which is a transparent process for disposal of scrap material and this gives equal opportunity to all the bidders in a transparent manner, free from any manual intervention. More than 3700 vendors are already registered in the portal," the release further stated.

"In the process of e-Auction, lots are published online on the IREPS platform and bidders are allowed to bid online. If the highest bid received is higher than the pre-fixed reserve price then the bid is accepted by the system and the lot is declared as sold to the participant. The complete process is online, without any manual intervention," it added.

In the last financial year, East Coast Railway has disposed of scrap which was about 34 per cent higher in value terms than the target set by the Railway Board.

( With inputs from ANI )