Indian railways on Monday launched a web portal for the e-tendering process intended to bring in transparency and efficiency.The 'works module of Indian Railways e-procurement system' (IREPS) and implementation of ‘e-tendering in works contracts’ was launched by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu here.The minister said the process is an extremely important step towards IT (information technology) enablement of the Indian Railways. He elaborated that the development will not only result in saving time, but also bring in transparency of global standards. According to the ministry, the new portal will provide facilities like creation, publication and submission of tenders online.Currently, the Indian Railways is dealing with approximately 25,000 tenders involving an expenditure of above Rs.35,000 crore for maintenance of existing assets and creation of new ones.