Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal  chaired a meeting to formulate an action plan to boost sale volumes on the government e-marketplace (GeM).

The aim of the GeM is to achieve a target of Rs 1 lakh crore gross merchandise volume (GMV) on the marketplace in FY 2019-20.

The meeting also deliberated on ways to explore various ways of bringing on board more government ministries and departments, public sector undertakings, and state governments on the platform.

Goyal appreciated the transformation in public procurement driven through the platform. He directed the officers to maximize the use of GeM to ensure transparency and saving in procurements.

He also urged GeM officers to work with all the ministries and state governments and hand hold them to show the benefits of GeM . He also said that greater transparency and quality of products must be ensured on the platform in order to get the railways, defence, telecom and public sector undertakings (PSUs) like oil, power, heavy industry to place orders of more than one lakh crore through the GeM platform.

Goyal also discussed with the secretaries ways of bringing in external technical experts for specialized products so that more categories are created in GeM in the shortest time and complaints about substandard material is completely eliminated.

He said that the procedure for using the GeM platform has to be made more simple, less time consuming and attractive so that more and more vendors, especially from the MSME sector, come on board.

Ease of getting registered on the GeM platform has to be ensured so that public sector banks, PSUs, Ministries and Departments of the State Governments and local bodies at the district level are able to procure from GeM easily and smoothly.

Possibilities may also be explored for incentivizing ministries and states who procure more products and services from GeM. During the review meeting, the Commerce and Industry Minister also examined the possibility of  Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) to provide the services of their staff in regional centres all over the country to promote GeM and increase the procurement through GeM in their areas.

Goyal requested all ministries and departments to nominate a joint level officer to coordinate with GeM and to identify more products and services that may be procured through the GeM platform.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Som Parkash also attended the meeting. Chairman, Railway Board and Secretaries of Departments of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Commerce and Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and Secretaries of Ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Housing and Urban Affairs, New and Renewable Energy and Power also participated in the meeting.

Published On : 19-07-2019

Source : Money Control