New Delhi (NVI): More than 46,000 buyers are registered on Government e-Marketplace (GeM) and 62 thousand crores have been transacted in Uttar Pradesh alone through the portal, indicating that GeM is fast-growing and aims to become a leading e-commerce place for sellers.
Praveen Wadhwani, Regional Business Facilitator, GeM Uttar Pradesh came up with the figures as GeM officials both from the Centre and regional level interacted with various business representatives from UP over virtual platform to address their queries and update them about the various features of the current version of GeM portal.
Wadhwani shared a presentation with the participants which detailed about the features of the portal and the registration process for manufacturers and OEMs. He also spoke that the state government mandates 25% procurement from MSEs and promotes government buying through the portal.
He also informed the participants that they can participate in bids and reverse auction on the platform for their products and services. “A new feature on the portal is that the sellers can initiate new product suggestion,” said Wadhwani.
Ankit Gupta, Chairman, CII Uttar Pradesh said, “In today’s world it has become pertinent to use the technologies in order to reach out to the bigger market, this has even become more important in the current COVID situation to reach out to the customer with the click of a button.”
He also noted that GeM portal has not only created a platform for sellers to explore the bigger market but has also opened the whole new world of opportunities for them in a transparent & systematic manner.
Also addressing the session, KC Jha, Advisor-GeM, GOI informed the participants that the portal has been in effect since August 2016. Through continuous business process re-engineering, it now takes less than 20 minutes to register as a seller on the platform, he said.
He also informed that tenders can now be opened within 7 days which previously used to take 21 days. Due consideration has also been given to start-ups and weavers who can now participate and sell on the portal without any middlemen.
The current version also assures timely and assured payment to the suppliers. Jha mentioned that work is in process for version 4 of the portal and it would also feature a mechanism to keep out sellers who quote unrealistic prices.
Manoj Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, MKU Ltd shared his experience as a registered seller and mentioned that the portal has made it very easy for the sellers to register themselves while he pointed out that the helpdesk can be made more efficient.
-ARK
