Port Blair, Oct. 16: A Buyers Session on Government e-market place (GeM) was held in the Auditorium of Tagore College of Education here today. The session was inaugurated by Shri C. Arvind, Secretary (Finance) while Shri Ramesh Mahadevan, Business Facilitator, GeM for Andaman and Nicobar Islands was the key person. About 126 Officers and Officials from all the Departments/Offices/PSU etc. of Andaman and Nicobar Administration attended the session.
Inaugurating the Buyers session, the Secretary Finance informed that the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is a one stop portal, a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-market place, launched on 9th August, 2016 to facilitate online procurement of common use Goods & Services required by various Government Departments / Organizations / 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. Further, new tools are evolved from time to time by GeM. The purchases through GeM by Government users have been authorized and made mandatory by Ministry of Finance by adding a new Rule No. 149 in the General Financial Rules, 2017.
As far as this UT is concerned, presently there are 74 primary users, 726 secondary users, 194 DDO/PAO and 532 Buyers/Consignee who are registered on GeM. Further, 5541 sellers and 1641 MSE sellers from these Islands have registered themselves for transacting on GeM.
It is worth mentioning here that despite the constraints on remoteness and connectivity in few Islands of this UT, there has been a considerable increase in the procurement thorugh GeM over the past few years and the details are as under
Financial Year – Goods – Services - Total (Rs. in Crs)
2019-20 - 34.10 - 0.87 - 34.97
2020-21 - 67.04 - 13.84 - 80.88
2021-22 - 101.75 - 28.90 - 130.65
2022-23 - 147.53 - 54.47 - 202.00
2023-24 (Till 15.10.2023) - 114.24 - 43.83 - 154.07
The Secretary urged all participants to utilize this opportunity and gain maximum knowledge for better understanding and maximum procurement through GeM.
Thereafter, the session was carried forward by Shri Ramesh Mahadevan during which, he made a presentation about the features of GeM, various processes of procurements and the new features which are currently added on GeM for procurement of various goods and services. He elaborated each and every feature for better understanding of all participants. He thereafter concluded with an interactive session for clearing the doubts of participants.