| Ministry/Division |
: |
Ministry of Finance |
| Agency |
: |
National Board of Revenue |
| Procuring Entity Name |
: |
Member (Customs: Export, Bond & IT), National Board of Revenue |
| Procuring Entity Code |
: |
- |
| Procuring Entity District |
: |
Dhaka |
| Expression of Interest for Selection of |
: |
Individual Consultant (National) (Lump-Sump) |
| Title Of Service |
: |
Independent Advisory Services on Overall Software Architecture and Framework, Technical Supervision, Research on Appropriate AI/ML Model and Quality Assurance for the Enhancement and Modernization of the AI-Enabled Customs Bond Management System (CBMS) [Package No. CS2] |
| EOI Ref. No. |
: |
08.01.0000.000.056.21.0001.26-547 |
| Date |
: |
15/10/2026 |
KEY INFORMATION
|
| Procurement Sub-Method |
: |
Selection of Individual Consultants (SIC) |
FUNDING INFORMATION
|
| Budget and Source of Funds |
: |
Development Budget GOB |
| Development Partners |
: |
- |
PARTICULAR INFORMATION
|
| Project/Programme Name |
: |
Independent Technical Advisory Institution (National) |
| EOI Closing Date and Time |
: |
05/11/2026 3: 00 PM
|
| Publication Date |
: |
15/10/2026
|
INFORMATION FOR APPLICANT
|
| Brief Description of Assignment |
: |
The Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh has allocated public funds, and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) intends to apply a portion of these funds towards the cost of independent technical advisory, AI/ML model design and data engineering, and quality assurance services for the Software Development and Upgradation of the Customs Bond Management System (CBMS) by Enhancement of Existing Modules, Incorporation of New Modules, Geographical Expansion, and Operation and Maintenance of the CBMS.
CBMS is the digital platform of record for end-to-end management of bonded warehouse operations across Bangladesh, covering Bond License administration, e-Bond Register maintenance, HS Code and Co-efficient (DEDO) management, Utilization Permission (UP) and Utilization Declaration (UD) processing, lien bank coordination, audit management, Diplomatic Warehouse Management, Faceless Audit, AI/ML-based Risk Management and related regulatory workflows under the Customs Act, 2023 and applicable Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs). NBR is engaging a software firm (the "Software Vendor") through a separate procurement to re-architect CBMS to a microservices-based platform, enhance existing modules, develop new modules, integrate CBMS with external systems (ASYCUDA World, Bangladesh Bank, BIDA, BEPZA, BSW, e-VAT, e-TIN and lien banks), expand it to all designated field offices, and operate and maintain it under a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
NBR intends to engage a qualified independent institution (a university, a Government/autonomous research or technical institute, or a research firm) as Technical Advisor, designer of AI/ML models and data engineering, and Quality Assurance (QA) Service Provider to act on behalf of NBR throughout the contract life of the Software Vendor: to review and advise on requirements, architecture and design; to devise the AI/ML models and the data engineering framework for the Risk Management and other AI/ML-based components and to validate their implementation; to independently verify and validate the software deliverables, including code quality, functional, performance and security testing; to verify integration, data migration and geographical roll-out; to advise NBR on acceptance of deliverables and milestone payments; and to monitor SLA compliance during operation and maintenance.
|
| Experience, Resources and Delivery Capacity Required |
: |
The applicant institution must meet all of the following minimum eligibility criteria:
1) Must be a legally established and recognized institution in Bangladesh, namely (a) a public or private university, through its Computer Science/Software Engineering/ICT-related department, institute or research and consultancy center; or (b) a Government or autonomous research or technical institute; or (c) a legally registered research firm/organization; or (d) an ICT firm. Documentary evidence of legal status (Act/Charter/Statute, UGC approval, or certificate of incorporation/registration, as applicable) must be submitted.
2) Must have demonstrated capability in (i) Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or related fields, including AI modelling, machine learning and data engineering; (ii) Customs or Regulatory or Financial Domain; and (iii) Accounting or Taxation or Domestic and International Business or related fields.
3) Minimum 8 (eight) years of experience in providing ICT consultancy, technical advisory, software quality assurance/testing or independent verification and validation (IV&V) services to Government, semi- Government or autonomous organizations.
4) Valid e-TIN and VAT Registration (BIN) of the institution.
5) Successful completion of at least 1 (one) assignment as technical advisory/consultancy firm or as quality assurance service provider for a software development or e-governance project of any Government, semi- Government or autonomous organization or Government-owned company, with a single contract value of at least Tk. 2.00 (two) crore. Work Order/Contract Agreement and Completion Certificate must be submitted as documentary evidence.
6) Experience in software testing and quality assurance (functional, integration, regression and performance/load testing, code review and test automation) of enterprise software system(s). Work Order/Contract Agreement/Completion Certificate must be submitted as documentary evidence.
7) Experience in cyber security assessment, i.e. vulnerability assessment and penetration testing (VAPT), secure code review or ICT security audit, of at least 1 (one) Government or financial sector system. Documentary evidence must be submitted.
8) Experience in review of solution architecture and system design of large-scale enterprise systems. Experience with microservices-based, containerized or cloud-based platforms and API gateway-based integration will be given preference.
9) Experience in preparation or review of Functional Requirements Specification (FRS), Business Requirements Specification (BRS), Software Requirements Specification (SRS), TOR/RFP or system design documents, or in technical evaluation and acceptance testing of ICT systems for Government organizations.
10) Demonstrated research and development capability in AI/ML-based analytics, risk scoring or predictive modelling, and in data engineering, as required for devising and validating the AI/ML-based Risk Management components (evidence: research publications or technical reports or implemented solutions).
11) Minimum 20 (twenty) full-time faculty members or researchers or ICT professionals in the relevant department/institute/firm. A list certified by the competent authority of the institution must be submitted, showing each person's name, designation, highest degree, area of specialization, official e-mail and notable international publications (if any). PhD holders and international publications will be given preference.
12) Availability of adequately experienced professionals among the institution's own full-time faculty members or researchers or professional staff (Team Leader/Principal Technical Advisor, Software Architecture Expert, Software QA and Testing Expert, Cyber Security Expert, Database and Data Migration Expert, System Integration/API Expert, AI/ML Expert, Data Engineer, DevOps/Cloud and Infrastructure Expert, Business Process/Customs Domain Analyst, QA/Test Engineers, etc.) to carry out the assignment successfully.
13) The institution and its proposed experts must not be, and must not become, during the assignment, engaged directly or indirectly as a developer, partner, associate, sub-consultant or adviser to any firm participating in or awarded the CBMS software development and upgradation contract. To avoid conflict of interest, no individual associated with an applicant institution shall be involved at any stage of this selection process. A signed declaration must be submitted.
14) Documents demonstrating the management and operational capacity of the institution (profile, brochures and other documents describing expertise, strengths, core functions, services, similar assignment experience, and availability of relevant professional staff and resources to carry out this assignment).
15) Proposed team members must be able to work on-site at NBR, Dhaka or remotely from the host institution, as required by their assigned tasks, and must be available to visit designated field offices as needed during the assignment.
16) Declaration that the institution has not been debarred or declared ineligible by the Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) or by any Government organization.
|
| Other Details (if applicable) |
: |
NBR now invites eligible institutions to indicate their interest in providing the services. Interested institutions must provide information showing that they are qualified to perform the services, substantiated by brochures and other documents describing similar assignments, experience, availability of appropriate professional qualifications and experience among the applicant's staff, resources to carry out the assignment, and financial and logistic capability.
1) The institution shall provide the contract agreement/proof/completion certificates for the criteria listed above, as applicable, including full contact details of the client's focal point/signatory/contact person.
2) The EOI must be submitted online through the national e-GP system (www.eprocure.gov.bd) only, using the e-REOI forms in Section 2. All supporting documents must be uploaded in PDF through the e-GP Document Library/mapping. Hard copy, e-mail or any other offline submission will not be accepted.
3) Uploaded documents should be clearly named and include a Table of Contents and page numbers.
|
| Association with foreign firms is |
: |
Not Applicable |
| Eoi Detail Information |
|---|
| Ref No |
Phasing Of Services |
Location |
Start Date |
Completion Date |
| - |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
PROCURING ENTITY DETAILS
|
| Name of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
Farzana Afrose |
| Designation of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
Member (Customs: Export, Bond & IT) |
| Address of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
National Board of Revenue, Rajaswa Bhaban, Agargaon, Dhaka-1207 |
| Contact details of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
Phone : 2-222-217722, Fax : , Email : bmap@nbr.gov.bd |
| The procuring entity reserves the right to accept or reject all tenders |
