While for pushing the “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said Tuesday the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal has made it mandatory for sellers to submit the country of origin while registering any new product on the online procurement portal. Along the lines of the move, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is also looking to extend the order to private e-commerce platforms as well.
Government e Marketplace is a National Public Procurement Portal. Government e Marketplace (GeM) facilitates online procurement of common use Goods & Services required by various Government Departments / Organisations / PSUs. GeM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement. It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate the government users, achieve the best value for their money. The purchases through GeM by Government users have been authorised and made mandatory by Ministry of Finance by adding a new Rule No. 149 in the General Financial Rules, 2017.
For buyers, the GeM portal has enabled a ‘Make in India’ filter to allow buyers to choose products that meet the minimum 50% local content criteria. The GeM portal will now allow buyers to reserve any bid for Class I local suppliers, which have more than 50% local content. As per the rules, for bids below Rs 200 crore, only Class I and Class II — those with more than 20% local content — are eligible to bid.
The move can be seen as border disputes along the LAC (Line of Actual Control), called for boycotting Chinese products. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) claimed that it has approached Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal asking for the ‘country of origin’ tag to be mandated for other e-commerce platforms as well.
