Nearly three weeks after the Supreme Court paved the way for the tax authority to continue with its excise duty sticker procurement plans, the Inland Revenue Department has selected a bidder for the purpose.

Indonesian company—Perusahaan Umum Percetakan Uang Republik Indonesia (Perum Peruri)—won the race to print and supply the excise stamps, the department said in a notice on Sunday. Alongside the Indonesian company, three other bidders, one each from India, China and Lithuania were in the race, according to the department.

The department said that the Indonesian company was selected as it submitted the lowest bid. The company had quoted a price of $10.47 million, which according to the tax authority, is the lowest quoted price among four bidders.

“As the Indonesian company offered an attractive proposal both technically and financially, this company has been selected for excise duty stickers,” said Thaneshwor Gautam, deputy director-general of the Inland Revenue Department. “The company will supply 7.83 billion stickers, which will be sufficient for around two years.”

The Indonesia company had supplied excise stickers to the department earlier too. It had supplied the exercise stamps in 2016 when it got a contract of printing and supplying 4.96 billion pieces of stickers.

Gautam said the department would invite the Indonesian company to sign an agreement by giving a deadline of 15 days, if the rival bidders had no issues with the awarding of the contract to the Perum Peruri, within a week.

The department wants to get the stickers supplied, as early as possible, from the company as it has already been facing a shortage of some stickers. “Although it takes around four months to get the supply since the signing of the agreement, generally, we will seek supplies earlier than usual during the signing agreement,” said Gautam.

Right after the Supreme Court verdict in favour of the department on February 24, scrapping a writ petition that had sought a halt to the procurement of excise duty stickers, the department had gone ahead with the procurement process.

It had called for a bid in September and was preparing to open the bids it had received through e-bidding, when the writ was filed in the Supreme court. Eventually, the court issued an interim stay in November last year.

Due to an obstruction in the procurement process, the tax offices have been forced to use stickers meant for domestic liquor for the imported kind. As the stickers for imported liquor have run out, importers have been using domestic liquor stickers by stamping them with an ‘imported’ label.

Officials say they are fast running out of domestic liquor stickers too, which would effectively mean a halt to popular liquor products.

According to the department, based on initial estimates, the current stock of stickers will run out by mid-June.

In interviews with the Post in January, liquor manufacturers and producers had expressed concerns about the possibility of counterfeit products flooding the market due to the lack of excise duty stickers.

With the tax authority running out of stickers, producers and importers of liquor and tobacco, one of the major contributors to government revenue, had told the Post they were concerned over the possibility of a shutdown of their businesses.