Allegations of corruption in govt procurement portal 'baseless': Sitharaman

Congress has argued that 8 BJP lawmakers had flagged concerns of corruption

Commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday dismissed as baseless Congress’s allegations of corruption in public procurement on government e-marketplace (GeM) portal.

Ruling out any probe, Sitharaman announced the ministry would sign pacts with state governments for greater implementation of GeM.

The portal had been in news over the past three days, with the Congress party on Friday alleging corruption in procurement under the portal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging state chief ministers to use it to reduce corruption and increase transparency.

Directorate General of Supplies and Disposal under commerce and industry ministry had launched the portal last August. The new platform allows government departments and agencies to make direct purchases of common-use goods and services costing up to Rs 50,000. 

Sellers have to register on the platform and compete with other players in an open market model with the seller offering the lowest rates being chosen.

However, the Congress had argued that the new system was no better alleging that eight lawmakers from the ruling party itself had flagged concerns on corruption.

According to Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, the Minister of State for Health Faggan Singh Kulaste, as well as lawmakers, including Kaushal Kishore, Ajay Nishad, Harish Dwivedi and Arjun Lal Meena, have in separate letters to the Commerce Minister alleged that the GeM has massive irregularities.

However, Sitharaman said six of these lawmakers had written asking the government o simply continue the current practice of awarding rate contracts. “As for the letter from Ajay Nishad, he has told me that its not his” Sitharaman said. “Both the letter from Nishad ji as well as from (Ashok Mahaderoa) Nete ji are forged and contain the exact same language” she added.

The letter from Kulaste was a forwarded one from a company functionary - Anuj Pandey, General Manager of sales at HCL. However, HCL has now disowned the letter saying that it has no employee with that name and designation, Sitharaman said.

“While there have been allegations that items bought under GeM are more expensive than those in the market, one has to take into account the exact specifications of various products.” Binoy Kumar, Director General of DGS&D told the media. He added that the portal has a filter which incorporates all government policy regarding the procurement of products and that government officials have the right to return items which are found to be expensive.

According to information sourced from the GeM portal, there are 2,258 buyers listed on the platform. There are 5,455 sellers and 174 service providers enrolled with the marketplace.

Earlier in the month, the Cabinet had ordered the DGS&D to be wound up by October 31 with the procurement for more and more items subsumed under the GeM.