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CPPP and the state e-procurement portals: finding power tenders in India

Where Indian public buyers publish their e-tenders: the Central Public Procurement Portal (CPPP), the NIC e-procurement system used by central companies and most states, what an Indian tender notice (NIT) tells you, and how online bidding works, from enrolment and digital signatures to covers, the BoQ and deadlines.

By the TenderGrid team. Updated 23 Oct 2026.

India's public tenders for power and energy work are mostly e-tenders. The buyer publishes a notice inviting tenders (NIT) online, you download the documents, and you submit your bid on the same system. Most of these tenders appear on the Central Public Procurement Portal (CPPP) or on the e-procurement portals of central companies and state governments, and most of those portals run the same software, built by India's National Informatics Centre (NIC). This guide explains where to look, how to read an Indian tender notice and how bidding on these portals works.

CPPP: the central portal

The Central Public Procurement Portal is run by the National Informatics Centre together with the Procurement Policy Division of the Department of Expenditure, in the Ministry of Finance. Central government organisations publish their tender enquiries, corrigenda and contract awards on it. The bidding itself happens on e-procurement systems behind the portal:

Central ministries and departments use the e-procurement system for central government organisations.
Central public sector companies and some statutory bodies, such as NEEPCO, NPCIL, DVC and BBMB, use a separate system for central public sector enterprises.
Some large companies run their own copy of the same system, among them NTPC, BHEL, Coal India and IndianOil.

CPPP also lists the latest active tenders from the state portals and from GeM, the Government e-Marketplace. To bid, though, you always go to the portal where the tender was published. GeM works differently from the e-tender portals: see our guide to GeM bids for electrical and energy products.

The state portals

Most states and union territories run their portals on NIC's e-procurement software, known as GePNIC. NIC lists more than 30 states and union territories that use it, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal and Assam. State departments, municipal bodies and many state power companies publish their tenders there.

Some states use other systems, among them Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar, and some utilities run their own e-tender sites: Maharashtra's distribution company MSEDCL, for example, publishes on its own portal. If you want to bid for a particular discom or transmission company, check its website for the portal it uses.

What an Indian tender notice tells you

On the NIC portals every tender has a details page with the same fields. These are the ones to read first:

Field	What it tells you
Tender ID	The portal's number for the tender, for example 2026_NTPC_123456_1. In practice it starts with the year and a short code for the buyer. Quote it whenever you contact the buyer.
Tender reference number	The buyer's own reference, often the NIT number.
Tender type and category	An open, limited or global tender, for works, goods or services.
Form of contract	For example item rate, percentage, lump sum or supply.
Number of covers	How many sealed parts the bid has, for example a technical cover and a financial cover (see below).
Tender fee and EMD	The fee for the documents and the earnest money deposit, whom to pay, and whether exemptions are allowed. Our guide to EMD, tender fees and MSE exemptions explains them.
Critical dates	Publication, the period for downloading the documents, the pre-bid meeting, the start and end of bid submission, and bid opening.
Tender inviting authority	The office that runs the tender, with its address. Documents that must be sent on paper, such as an original bank guarantee, go here.

The NIT and the tender documents hold the rest: the scope of work, the eligibility criteria such as similar work done and turnover, the special conditions and, usually as a spreadsheet, the bill of quantities (BoQ) for your prices. Corrigenda can change any of these, so check for them until the deadline.

How bidding works on the NIC portals

Enrol on the portal. Enrolment is free, but it is per portal: if your buyers publish on several state portals, you enrol on each of them.
Get a Class 3 digital signature certificate (DSC). The portals ask for a Class 3 certificate from a licensed certifying authority. It is issued to a person, the one who signs bids for the company, and one certificate is linked to one account. Renew it before it expires, and register the renewed certificate on the portal again.
Find the tender and download the documents. Search the portal, or follow a buyer through the list of tenders by organisation. Download while signed in: the portals can then send you the tender's corrigenda by email, but check the tender page for them as well.
Pay the tender fee and EMD. Depending on the tender, you pay online through the portal or by demand draft or bank guarantee. A scanned copy of a paper instrument goes into your bid, and the original must reach the tender inviting authority by the time the tender sets.
Prepare the covers. The technical cover holds your documents, mostly as PDF files; the financial cover holds the BoQ. Enter only your name and your rates in the BoQ: the portals don't allow the template to be changed or replaced.
Freeze and submit before the deadline. A bid that hasn't been frozen counts as incomplete. Until the closing date and time, which follow the portal's clock in Indian Standard Time, you can change your documents and submit again; after it, nothing can be changed. Whether you may withdraw a bid is set tender by tender.
Follow the opening. Bids stay encrypted until they are opened, so that not even the portal's administrators can read them before. After the opening you can follow the tender's progress and result on the portal.

Upload a day early. Portals slow down on the last day, and once the closing time has passed the portal accepts nothing more.

Conditions that often decide who can bid

Experience and turnover. Most power tenders ask for similar completed work and a minimum average turnover in recent years. Startups recognised by DPIIT can be exempted from these criteria in central government tenders, as long as they meet the technical requirements.
Make in India. Buyers give purchase preference to local suppliers, and many tenders are open only to Class-I and Class-II local suppliers. The Ministry of Power sets minimum local content for many power-sector items.
Bidders from neighbouring countries. A bidder from a country that shares a land border with India may bid only if it is registered with the Competent Authority set up for this.
Approved makers and type tests. Utilities often accept equipment only from approved makers, or with type test reports from recognised laboratories. Check this before you ask for supplier quotes.

Our guide to EMD, tender fees and MSE exemptions covers these rules in more detail, and our bid or no-bid checklist helps you decide whether a tender is worth the effort.

Where TenderGrid fits in

Every two days TenderGrid reads the public lists of tenders by organisation on the e-procurement system for central public sector enterprises, on the NTPC, BHEL, Coal India and IndianOil portals and on many of the state portals, as well as MSEDCL's own portal, and keeps the tenders of power, oil, gas and coal buyers. You can follow them in one feed, next to energy tenders from other countries. To bid, you go to the portal: the official notice there is always the one that counts.