What "Similar Work" Actually Means in a Tender, and How It Is Judged

"Similar work" is the most litigated phrase in Indian public procurement and the one that ends the most bids. It is also the one clause where two competent evaluation committees, reading the same notice and the same completion certificate, can honestly reach different conclusions.

Understanding where the genuine ambiguity sits is what lets you decide whether to bid, and what to ask in the pre-bid meeting.

The clause has two halves

A typical similar-work clause reads: *the bidder should have satisfactorily completed, during the last seven years, one similar work costing not less than [percentage] of the estimated cost.*

That is two tests, and both must pass:

• Nature. The work must be similar in kind to what is being tendered.
• Value. It must be at or above a stated value, usually expressed as a percentage of the estimated cost of the tendered work.

Clearing one does not help with the other. A ₹12 crore road project does not qualify you for a ₹6 crore water treatment plant, and a ₹40 lakh water treatment plant does not qualify you for a ₹6 crore one.

What "similar" means in practice

Most notices define similar work, and where they do, the definition governs and there is nothing to argue about. Read it first.

Where the notice does not define it, committees generally look at whether the principal components of the work overlap. A building construction tender and a building renovation tender share structural, finishing and services components. A building tender and a road tender share very little beyond both being civil works.

The reasoning that carries weight is component-level, not category-level. "Both are civil works" is a weak argument. "The tendered work is an RCC framed structure with internal electrification and plumbing, and the completed work I am citing was an RCC framed structure with internal electrification and plumbing" is a strong one.

The value test, and the trap in it

The value test is usually a percentage of the estimated cost of the tendered work. Common formulations ask for one work at a higher percentage, or two or three works at a lower percentage each.

The trap: the value that counts is the value of the completed work, as certified. Not the contract value at award, if variations changed it. Not your share, if it was a joint venture and the certificate names the JV rather than you. Not the value including work done by others under your coordination.

Where the certificate states a figure, that figure is the one that will be read.

Some notices provide for price escalation of past work values, allowing older completed works to be uplifted by a stated percentage per year to bring them to current prices. Where a notice offers it, use it: a seven-year-old project can clear a threshold it would fail at its original figure. Where the notice is silent, do not assume it.

The evidence is a completion certificate

This is where a large share of similar-work rejections actually happen. The clause asks about completed work, and a work order does not evidence completion. It evidences award.

A completion certificate that carries weight generally states the work executed, the completed value, the dates of commencement and completion, and that the work was completed satisfactorily. A certificate missing the value, or missing any statement about satisfactory completion, invites a query at best.

Work order or completion certificate covers what to ask the issuing authority for, and how to obtain a certificate years after the work finished, which is a more common problem than it should be.

Private sector work

Whether private-sector work counts depends on the notice. Many public works tenders require the experience to be with a government department, PSU or autonomous body. Others accept private work supported by the client's certificate along with evidence of payment, such as TDS certificates.

Where the notice restricts experience to government work, a strong private portfolio does not help, and that is not an interpretation question.

The seven-year window

Most clauses limit the lookback, commonly to seven years for works, counted backwards from a stated date, often the last day of the month before the tender was issued.

Two consequences. A firm's best-ever project ages out. And a project completed just inside the window this month falls outside it next quarter, which is an argument for bidding sooner rather than later where you are relying on an old project.

Building the record before you need it

The firms that clear this clause reliably are not the ones with the best projects. They are the ones with the certificates already collected, indexed by value, nature, client and completion date, so a similar-work clause can be answered the same day the notice appears.

The single most useful habit: obtain the completion certificate when the work completes, while the engineer who supervised it still occupies the chair. Chasing one from a department four years later, after three transfers, is a genuinely hard task.

Avsar keeps your completed works with their values and dates and matches them against each tender's similar-work clause, showing which work satisfies it and which certificate proves it. See the eligibility engine, or browse tenders by category to see how the clause varies by work type.