The Commerce and Industry Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman launched the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) in New Delhi today . The Minister said this platform will ensure greater transparency and revolutionise Government procurement.

DGS&D has developed Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a completely end to end procurement system for purchase of common use goods and services by Government buyers. Earlier this year, two Groups of Secretaries in their presentation to Hon’ble PM made recommendations to reform DGS&D by creating a one stop online marketplace for Government buyers for their routine requirements. The Hon’ble FM in his Budget speech 2016-17, announced the establishment of a technology driven platform by DGS&D. Cabinet Secretary in his review in March 2016 directed GeM to be developed expeditiously as pilot project with the technical support of NeGD in Ministry of Electronics & IT.

GeM (Pilot phase) has been developed jointly in a record time for select goods and services. The entire process flow designing has been done in house in order to bring greater transparency, speed and efficiency in public procurement. The significant feature is linking with payment portals like SBI and PFMS which makes the entire process online.

In order to enable Government buyers to procure on GeM, GFR (General Financial Rules) has been amended by addition of Rule 141A. Upto ₹ 50,000, a buyer can do direct purchase and beyond this through price comparison, bidding or reverse auction. Department of Expenditure has also issued directive to all paying authorities to make payments on GeM procurement within a maximum of 10 days. Acceptance or rejection of goods has to be within 10 days of receipt or will be deemed accepted.

Salient features :

a. Completely end to end online procurement system including payment to suppliers.

b. GeM relieves public offices from tedious and time consuming tendering process and thus cuts down on administrative and transaction costs.

c. Online registration of suppliers and Government buyers using self certification and authentication through Aadhar, PAN, MCA21, Biometric Attendance System (BAS) etc..

d. Seamless process flow and standardised specifications with complete audit trail. Demand aggregation is made possible which will make prices very competitive.

e. All transactions in GeM are completely secure. At every stage of processing, there are alerts through emails and SMS which make the system very responsive.

f. To begin with, common use items in 26 categories like computers, office equipment, stationery, etc. have been placed on the GeM portal. Apart from goods, the notable feature of GeM is providing facility for engaging taxi services with multiple options of hiring like spot, daily use, monthly or annually and also leasing.

g. A Call Centre/helpdesk (0120-6619563) for GeM has been set up. This will help both buyers and sellers in conducting their transactions on GeM.

h. DGS&D is conducting training of Government buyers as well as sellers on GeM.

With the launch of Government e-Marketplace, a new era of public procurement will be ushered in and will be a game changer.

Government procurement reform: an online marketplace standardises purchases, speeds payments and increases transparency across public buying. GeM is a fully end to end e procurement platform designed to enhance transparency, speed and accountability by providing online supplier and buyer registration with electronic authentication, standardised specifications, full audit trails, linkage to government payment portals for online settlement, and automated user alerts. The General Financial Rules have been amended to enable platform procurement with a two tier mechanism allowing direct purchase for low value needs and competitive procurement for higher value needs; paying authorities must make timely payments and goods are deemed accepted if not accepted or rejected within the prescribed period.