Quality and Cost Based Selection
Also called: QCBS · Topic: Industrial Policy, Public Sector, MSMEs and Disinvestment · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) is a way for the government to choose a winner in a tender, which is an open call for offers. Each bid is scored on two things: technical quality (experience, technology, plan) and cost. It runs in two stages. First the technical bids are opened and scored. Then the financial bids, which state the price, are opened, and the two scores are added up with set weights:
Combined score = (technical weight × technical score) + (cost weight × financial score)
The highest combined score wins. So the cheapest bid does not win just because it is cheapest. This matters for complex projects, where a cheap bidder who cannot deliver costs the country time.
Example
The Ministry of Heavy Industries ran a global tender for 10 GWh of Advanced Chemistry Cell (battery cell) factory capacity for grid storage under the PLI ACC scheme. It used an online two-stage QCBS process on the Central Public Procurement (CPP) Portal. The technical bids were opened on 11 November 2026, and 22 bids had come in. Opening technical bids is only the first stage, so no winner had been chosen yet.
Don't confuse with
- L1 (lowest bidder) selection: the contract goes to whoever quotes the lowest price, once the bid meets basic eligibility. Quality is not weighed against cost.