• Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is a very bold step of the Government with the aim to transform the way in which procurement of goods and services is done by the Government Ministries/Departments, PSUs, autonomous bodies etc.
• DGS&D with technical support of NeGD (MeitY) has developed GeM portal for procurement of both Products & Services.
• GeM is a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-market place that enables procurement of common use goods and services with minimal human interface.

Benefits of GeM to the Government, Sellers and the Indian industry and economy –

• Transparency –

1. GeM eliminates human interface in vendor registration, order placement and payment processing, to a great extent.
2. At every step, SMS and e-Mail notifications are sent to both buyer, his/her head of organization, paying authorities as well as sellers. Online, cashless and time bound payment on GeM is facilitated.

• Efficiency –
  1. Direct purchase on GeM can be done in a matter of minutes and the entire process in online, end to end integrated and with online tools for assessing price reasonability.

  2. For procurements of higher value, the bidding/RA facility on GeM is among the most transparent and efficient, in comparison to e-procurement systems in vogue within the Government sector.

  3. For creating a bid/RA, the buyer does not need to create his/her own technical specifications as they have been standardized on GeM. These would make GeM an extremely powerful tool in the hands of Government organizations to plan and procure.

• Secure and safe –

  1. GeM is a completely secure platform and all the documents on GeM are e-Signed at various stages by the buyers and sellers.

  2. The antecedents of the suppliers are verified online and automatically through MCA21, Aadhar and PAN databases.

  3. For high value bids/RA on GeM, an e-Bank Guarantee is also being introduced.

  4. GeM is a far better system than the existing one which relies more on financial instruments (EMD in case of tenders for large procurements only) to guarantee good conduct by the suppliers.

  5. In the existing system, there is zero check on the antecedents of the suppliers for small value procurements (upto Rs 1 lakh) whose cumulative value is huge across the Government organizations.

  6. GeM does a 100% online verification of all vendors irrespective of the value of procurement.

• Potential to support Make in India –

  1. On GeM, the filters for selecting goods which are Preferential Market Access (PMA) compliant and those manufactured by Small Scale Industries(SSI), enables the Government buyers to procure Make in India and SSI goods very easily.

  2. Easily accessible MIS also enables the administrators and policy makers to easily and effectively enforce the Government regulations on PMA and SSI sourcing.

• Savings to the Government –

  1. The transparency, efficiency and ease of use of the GeM portal has resulted in a substantial reduction in prices on GeM, in comparison to the tender, Rate Contract and direct purchase rates.

  2. The average prices on GeM are lower by atleast 15-20%, and in some cases even upto 56%.

  3. GeM is also doing Demand Aggregation for items that are to be procured by various Central/State Government Departments.

  4. Demand Aggregation is expected to further drive the prices south, by way of standardization of specifications and economy of scale.

  5. If pursued to its logical conclusion, GeM would eventually emerge as the National Public Procurement Portal, keeping in tune with the Global best practices.

  6. Most of the OECD countries, like USA, South Korea, UK, Singapore etc., have a single NPPP and as a result annual savings of billions of dollars are made in public procurement, besides giving a fillip to the domestic industry.

Source:PIB