Brand Specific RFP and Bias Evaluation Criteria

Grievance

We raise a grievance on the Tender for Supply, Installation and Support Services of Data Center Core Switches at Data Center Karachi, issued by State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan (SLIC), IT Division, with bid submission scheduled for 23-09-2026 till 1100 Hrs. Several technical specifications under Section 1.4 of the tender document are drafted in a restrictive, brand-specific manner rather than being functionally neutral, favoring a single OEM and unfairly limiting competition among qualified bidders, contrary to the principles of open and fair competition under the PPRA Rules, 2004. Key issues include: a mandatory requirement that Copper SFP and 10GBASE-SR transceiver modules be "original from the same OEM," excluding compliant third-party alternatives without genuine technical justification; performance parameters such as IPv4 route counts, MAC entry limits, RPVST instance counts, and memory/buffer sizing narrowed to match one vendor's exact datasheet; inclusion of proprietary features such as MACsec (802.1AE), hierarchical multisite VXLAN EVPN, and YANG/RESTCONF programmability not uniformly supported across OEMs; and non-technical eligibility conditions such as mandatory CCNP/CCIE certification along with arbitrary "64-way" and "31-number" requirements serving no demonstrable technical purpose. We request SLIC to review, remove these restrictive clauses, and reissue the tender in a fair, technology-neutral manner for equal competition.