Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal, last evening, chaired a meeting to review and formulate an action plan for Government e Marketplace (GeM) to achieve a target for Rs. lakh crore Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) on GeM in FY 2019-20.

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

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.

Piyush Goyal urged GeM officers to work proactively with all the Ministries and State Governments and hand hold them to show that GeM is beneficial for them. Greater transparency and quality of products must be ensured on the platform in order to get the Railways, Defence, Telecom and PSUs like Oil, Power, Heavy Industry to place orders of more than one lakh crore through the GeM platform, said the Minister.

Possibilities may also be explored for incentivizing Ministries and States who procure more products and services from GeM. During the review meeting Commerce and Industry Minister also examined the possibility of 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.

During the review meeting Commerce & Industry Minister also discussed ways with the Secretaries, who were present, of bringing in external technical experts for specialized products required by railways, Oil PSUs, health sector etc., so that more categories are created in GeM in shortest time and complaints about substandard material is completely eliminated.

Commerce & Industry Minister requested all Ministries and Departments of Government of India to nominate a Joint Secretary level officer to coordinate with GeM and to identify more products and services that may be procured through the GeM platform.