Getting Past the PSU Technical Committee

The technical evaluation committee sat in a conference room that still had last year's safety-week banner. Five officers, one SI advisor, and a finance observer. The vendor opened with a foundation-model genealogy. The convener asked for the deny-outbound capture and the packet export on a machine that could not see the internet. The vendor asked for Wi-Fi. The score for isolation went to zero before the tea break.

This guide is for vendors walking a first agent into a CPSE technical committee, and for officers who have to mark them. It is not a bribe sheet and not a promise that a good packet wins a tailored tender. If the specification is honest, artefacts beat adjectives. If the specification is tailored, read the vigilance teardown and walk.

Committees in maharatnas are mixed rooms: a user, an IT person, sometimes a CISO delegate, sometimes a finance person who only cares that L1 will still be possible later. Talk to the room you have. The user wants the circular found. The CISO wants the pcap. Finance wants to know you will still exist in year two.

Not bid-strategy advice that replaces your counsel. Tender conditions win. This is what we have seen markable.

What they actually mark

Isolation: a soak on a deny-outbound VLAN, a pcap, an empty-or-named egress list. 'India region' is not isolation. Packet: a reconstructable export the company can open without your engineer. Purpose: a tag on the call, not a paragraph. Estate: a retrieval role, not SAP_ALL, named against their SID if they told you the SID.

Language: the working languages of that unit, with a tiny eval, not a claim of 22. References: a redacted work order in a similar culture — a power PSU is not a municipal corporation. Support: who answers at 2 a.m. without a foreign break-glass that you did not declare.

Bring the artefact. A slide with the same title is not the artefact.

Claim	Artefact in the room	Instant fail
Air-gapped / no phone-home	Pcap from a dark soak, hashed images	Installer reaches a CDN on first boot
Auditable	Packet for a named sample file, company-held	Console summarises after 90 days
SAP-ready	Retrieval role design, no invented BAPI	Ask for SAP_ALL to 'explore'
Indic coverage	Scored sample in the unit's languages	'We support 22 official languages'
Sovereign	Who holds keys, who can compel, where logs live	Logo of a Bharat outline

The demo they will forgive, and the one they will not

They will forgive a slow first token on a CPU box if the packet is right. They will not forgive a slick hosted demo that you cannot relocate to their sample. Ask in the pre-bid whether the technical demo is on their corpus or yours. If theirs, demand a classified, redacted sample in writing so you are not failed for refusing to ingest vigilance files on stage.

Do not live-type a prompt that invites the model to invent a circular number. Committees remember hallucinations longer than they remember latency.

The SI in the second chair

The incumbent SI is often invited as an advisor. They can sink you with a practical question about the transport path. Brief them before the day if the RACI allows it. If they are also a competitor, write your estate answers so the committee can mark you without the SI's blessing. 'We will need a retrieval role; here is the template' is stronger than 'we will work it out with whoever'.

After the marks

Ask for the score sheet if the tender allows. A zero on isolation with no pcap in the file is a fact you can live with. A zero because the committee wanted a product noun that was not in the tender is a vigilance fact for the buyer, not for your LinkedIn. Do not write to the CMD. Write a factual representation if the manual gives you a path.

If you win technical and lose commercial, keep the packet demo. The next file in an adjacent plant will reuse it. If you lose technical on a real gap, fix the gap. Do not hire a liaison.

Objections you will hear — and what to do with them

These are the lines that stall the file. Answer them in the room, then put the answer in the note. A spoken answer without paper will be forgotten by the next officer.

The committee is L1-minded; technical is theatre.

Then still pass technical. A fail is a fail. Theatre that you fail is expensive theatre.

We need the internet to show the latest model.

Then you are not bidding an isolated agent. Bid the architecture you can run in the room they specified.

Our OEM will send a foreign architect to impress them.

A foreign architect who cannot answer CERT-In or CVC questions will un-impress them. Send the person who can sit through a pcap.

They asked for 22 languages in the oral.

Point at the written tender. Offer eval on the unit's working languages. Do not invent a 22-language demo overnight. Read the Indic opinion.

A four-week committee playbook

Start when the tender is live, not the night before the slot.

1. Week 1: extract every markable sentence. Build an artefact list. Kill product nouns in your oral script if they are not in the bid.
2. Week 2: run the dark soak. Save the pcap and the packet export on media you will hand over.
3. Week 3: rehearse on a redacted sample. Practise refusing an out-of-class folder in one polite sentence.
4. Week 4: brief the estate answers; decide who speaks. Leave the genealogy slide out of the deck.

How this shows up in the file

Subject: Technical demonstration pack — isolation, packet, purpose, estate role.

We will demonstrate on a deny-outbound host, produce a company-readable packet for a named sample, show purpose tags, and present a retrieval-only estate role. We will not ingest unstamped or vigilance-class files in the room. Language claims match the written tender and the eval set, not a slogan.

This note is not a bid. The bid annexures repeat these proofs.

This article is informational field guidance for Indian public sector undertakings and their vendors, not legal, audit, labour, energy-regulatory, banking-regulatory or procurement advice. Confirm the live circular, DPE guideline, CVC instruction, sector regulator text, purchase manual and your counsel before you file it.

How this clears vigilance and the board

A P5 Startup/Vendor in a PSU will meet CVC-shaped questions even when there is no special 'AI circular'. “Getting Past the PSU Technical Committee” has to survive a technical committee, a cost centre, and a union conversation if jobs appear threatened.

The technical committee will not grade your keynote. They will try to fail you on isolation, packet, SAP role, and a claim you cannot demo on their sample. Bring those four, not a world-map. OT networks stay off-limits. Navratna autonomy speeds buying; it does not waive DPDP or data classification. IREPS is not GeM. RBI-shaped rules still localise payment data.

• Classify data before the POC.
• Keep agents off OT.
• Write the board memo with residual risk.
• Engage unions on retrieval vs replacement.

Close this loop before the next CAB

Put “Getting Past the PSU Technical Committee” on the next change-advisory or bid-opening agenda as a single line item with an owner. If it cannot earn a line item, it will not earn a control. The owner should be a P5 Startup/Vendor, not “the vendor.”

Revisit the item when the model, the GeM term, the region, or the SI changes. “PSU technical committee evaluation” is not a one-time workshop. It is a watch item. Date the last check. Unsigned watch items are souvenirs.

What must be true before you file this

If “Getting Past the PSU Technical Committee” is only a heading, it will not survive a file inspection. A P5 Startup/Vendor should be able to attach one artefact that proves “PSU technical committee evaluation”: a log export, a clause, a scored row, a dated notice, or a refusal rule.

Write three dated sentences: what was decided, who owns it, and when it will be re-checked. Unsigned sentences are souvenirs. Dated sentences are controls.

• Name the owner of “PSU technical committee evaluation” inside the institution.
• Attach one artefact a stranger can open next year.
• Revisit when the model, the notice, or the SI changes.
• Do not treat a vendor slide as evidence.

What the next file must contain

“Getting Past the PSU Technical Committee” earns a line in the noting only if a P5 Startup/Vendor can attach proof of “PSU technical committee evaluation.” A heading is not proof. A vendor slide is not proof. A workshop photograph is not proof.

Write three dated sentences: what was decided, who owns it after the next posting order, and when it will be re-checked. If you cannot write the three sentences, you are not ready to buy, to sell, or to go live.

Leave unsourced percentages out of the note. DPDP is not a blanket localisation statute. The November 2025 AI governance text is guidance, not an Act. CERT-In’s 28 April 2022 directions still set specified incident and log clocks. A PAC, when lawful, lives in GFR Rule 166.

• Name the designation that owns “PSU technical committee evaluation.”
• Attach one artefact a stranger can open next year.
• Record the instrument you are actually using.
• Revisit when the model, the SI, the notice or the posting changes.