Machine owners often assume Afcons, with 145 cranes and 17 tunnel boring machines of its own, has little use for a hire firm, yet its 2024-25 accounts show Rs 667.89 crore spent on equipment hire and rent and Rs 2,340.88 crore on subcontracting. Afcons vendor registration for those firms runs through the Be A Vendor link on afcons.com, which opens the company’s Smart SCM vendor portal with a Register Here button for new suppliers. Afcons publishes no fee, no document checklist and no approval time for it, as read on 3 November 2026. You agree to its Value Chain Code of Conduct, and the company’s average payment cycle was 148 days in 2024-25.

Afcons Infrastructure is the Shapoorji Pallonji group’s engineering and construction company, listed on the NSE and BSE since 2024. It builds metros, tunnels, bridges, ports and highways, and its order book stood at Rs 31,543 crore at the end of December 2025. Being a private listed company, it buys under its own rules and runs no public tender register for suppliers. The facts below come from the company’s website, its vendor portal, its Value Chain Code of Conduct, its Annual Report 2024-25 and its February 2026 investor presentation.

Where Afcons vendor registration starts

Every page of afcons.com carries a Be A Vendor link in the menu and the footer. It points to the Afcons vendor portal at sscm.afcons.com, a login page titled “Welcome to Vendor Portal” with the Smart SCM name on it. Existing vendors sign in with a username and password. A new supplier uses the Register Here button below the login box. The same page was live in the same form when it was archived in November 2025.

That is as far as the public trail goes. The registration form behind Register Here does not open as a stand-alone web address, and Afcons does not publish its fields, a list of documents, a fee, a validity period or a time to approval anywhere outside the portal. The L&T and Tata Projects routes are better documented; compare how L&T registers hire firms on its Partner Portal and the Tata Projects form and its Ariba checks if you plan to approach all three.

Question What Afcons publishes (as read on 3 November 2026)
Where to apply Be A Vendor link on afcons.com, then Register Here on sscm.afcons.com/portal/
Portal name Vendor Portal, Smart SCM
Who it covers Contractors, subcontractors, vendors, consultants and other service or goods providers (Value Chain Code of Conduct)
Documents asked Not published outside the portal
Fee Not published
Validity or renewal Not published
Fraud or caution notice None found on afcons.com
Code grievances SCM@afcons.com
Suspected fraud or misconduct vigilanceofficer@afcons.com

Who counts as an Afcons vendor?

The definition comes from the Afcons Value Chain Code of Conduct, which the board adopted on 20 March 2025. It applies to every value chain partner of Afcons, its subsidiaries and its joint ventures, and names contractors, subcontractors, vendors, consultants, agents and “other service or goods providers”, along with their staff. A firm that hires out a crane with an operator, runs tippers on an earthwork package or supplies a loader to a batching plant fits that list.

Registration and orders are separate steps. The 2024-25 annual report says that during the tendering stage the supply chain management (SCM) team works with the business unit team to check supplier capabilities and look at other sources. The company keeps what it calls a diversified vendor base and runs regular supplier performance assessments. Steel and cement come through long-term rate contracts with key suppliers. Nothing Afcons publishes promises an enquiry to a vendor just because it has registered.

What the Value Chain Code of Conduct asks of you

The code is short, six pages, and it sits on top of whatever your contract says. Where the law or the contract sets a stricter standard on the same point, the stricter one applies. Four parts matter most to a small hire firm.

On ethics, no bribes or facilitation payments, and no gifts or hospitality of any kind in connection with bidding, negotiation or award. Any actual or potential conflict of interest has to be reported to Afcons promptly. On safety, you must run a health and safety system for your own work, give your workers personal protective equipment and train them for the job. On labour, the code bars child and forced labour and expects minimum wages, overtime pay, leave and fair treatment for contract and migrant workers. On the environment, you are expected to measure your impact and share that data with Afcons when asked.

The code gives Afcons the right to run due diligence on you and inspect you. A breach can end the current contract and keep you out of future business. The BRSR section of the annual report adds that dedicated teams at project sites and the head office check that value chain partners deduct and deposit statutory dues correctly. If your operators are on your payroll, expect questions on their provident fund and ESI deposits.

How much Afcons spends on hire and subcontracting

These figures are the company’s own, from the standalone accounts and the BRSR in the Annual Report 2024-25. They are the latest audited numbers on afcons.com as of November 2026.

Measure (standalone) FY2023-24 FY2024-25
Subcontracting expenses Rs 2,388.49 crore Rs 2,340.88 crore
Equipment hire and rent charges Rs 645.33 crore Rs 667.89 crore
Inputs sourced directly from MSMEs and small producers 21.23% 19.47%
Inputs sourced from within India 71.09% 72.98%
Days of accounts payable 158 148
Principal owed to micro and small suppliers at year end, unpaid Rs 261.27 crore Rs 220.57 crore

Read the last two rows before you quote. The payable-days figure averages all purchases, including materials, spares, services and capital items, so one bill can clear faster. Still, a firm paying a monthly EMI on a machine cannot carry five months of rent without planning for it. The micro and small enterprise dues line appears because the MSMED Act, 2006 makes buyers disclose them, and the same note shows Rs 49.33 crore of interest due and unpaid at 31 March 2025. That protection applies only if you hold a Udyam registration before you supply. Recovering a delayed payment as a contractor covers what the Act lets a micro or small supplier claim.

Line up the cash before you commit a machine. If an Afcons order justifies a new unit, size the EMI on equipment finance so it survives a slow first bill.

Which Afcons projects need hired machines

Afcons keeps a strategic fleet: as of December 2025 it listed 145 cranes, 17 tunnel boring machines with three more due, 24 jumbo drills, 14 marine barges and 8 jack-ups, worth Rs 42,848 million, maintained at workshops in Delhi and Nagpur. Those are specialist machines. The general earthmoving, lifting and hauling on a site is where outside hire demand is likely to sit, which is what the Rs 667.89 crore hire bill suggests.

Urban infrastructure, meaning metros, bridges and elevated corridors, makes up 52% of the order book, hydro and underground work 25%, marine and industrial 16%, surface transport 5% and oil and gas 2%. Government clients account for 81%. The February 2026 investor presentation lists these ongoing Indian projects.

Project (as listed, February 2026) Scope Afcons describes Machine work this kind of scope usually involves
Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail, C2 package 21 km of tunnel, including a 7 km undersea section Muck handling, shaft-site lifting, haulage
Delhi Metro Phase IV 11.3 km of tunnels, 6 underground stations Station excavation, crane work, tipper haulage
Delhi-Meerut RRTS, packages 6 and 8 10.57 km elevated viaduct; 7.1 km of tunnels and 3 stations Pier foundations, casting-yard lifting
Bengaluru Metro 9.86 km elevated viaduct, 6 stations, 5 flyovers Pick-and-carry cranes, utility shifting
Mumbai-Pune Expressway Missing Link Missing link and widening of the existing road to 8 lanes Earthwork, rock handling, compaction
Bilaspur tunnels, Bhanupali-Bilaspur-Beri line Tunnels, bridges and formation works Formation earthwork, haul roads
Kosi River Bridge, Bihar New 4-lane bridge and upgrade of the national highway Approach embankments, material handling
Rural water supply, Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh Connections to 5.41 lakh houses in six tehsils Trenching and pipe laying
Dahej second liquid cargo berth, Gujarat EPC of a marine berth Yard lifting and material handling

The third column is a general reading of the work, not a list of Afcons hire orders. On metro casting yards and station sites, a 14-tonne pick-and-carry crane such as the ACE 14XW is the common hired lift. Pipeline trenches and utility shifting suit a backhoe loader like the JCB 3DX, which digs to 4,770 mm. Expressway and railway formation work needs a 21-tonne class excavator such as the Komatsu PC210-10M0 (20,900 kg operating weight). Specs are as listed in November 2026.

Before you click Register Here: a checklist

  • Get a Udyam registration first, so the MSMED Act’s payment terms cover your bills from the first invoice.
  • Put your health and safety system on paper and keep PPE issue records, since the code expects both for your workers.
  • Keep wage, PF and ESI deposit records for every operator you send to site.
  • Prepare a fleet list with model, year, registration number and the site you can reach fastest.
  • Price your hire on a payment cycle of about five months, the 148-day average Afcons reported.
  • Pay nobody who offers to get you registered; check with the head office on +91-22-6719 1000 and report offers to vigilanceofficer@afcons.com.
  • Track Afcons project awards on current infrastructure tenders and contract awards and approach the site that is mobilising.

Figures come from afcons.com and its vendor portal, the Afcons Value Chain Code of Conduct (adopted March 2025), the Afcons Annual Report 2024-25 and the company’s investor presentation of 10 February 2026, as read on 3 November 2026. Machine specifications are indicative and vary by variant and date. Portals, documents and supplier terms change. Confirm the current process with Afcons’ procurement team before you apply or quote. DesiMachines is not liable for decisions taken on information that may have changed after publication.