Govt's e-mkt place to allow transparent procurement: Fin Secy

The government's e-marketplace will enable its departments to use new technologies to procure goods and services in a more transparent and efficient manner and with the same ease as offered by e-commerce sites, a top official said today.
Speaking at the one-day hands-on training programme about government's e-market place, Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa stated that the government e-marketplace (GeM) has been developed within a short span of five months.
"Lavasa stated that GeM will enable government buyers to make use of new technologies to procure goods and services in a more transparent, accountable and efficient manner and with the same ease and efficiency that is presently offered by e-commerce sites," the commerce ministry said in a statement.

The Finance Secretary was of the view that such training programmes should be taken seriously and more and more officers should be trained including the state governments, it said.
The (Finance) Secretary requested the GeM team to make efforts to continuously improve the portal and ensure that it remains free from manipulation and any unethical practices.
Lavasa said that although it has been made mandatory on GeM to make payment to the vendors within 10 days of receipt of goods/services, efforts should be made to further reduce this time span as time is money and ultimately the cost of delayed payment is born by the government.

The training programme has been jointly organised by DGS&D (Directorate General of Supplies & Disposal), National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM) and National e-Governance Division (NeGD).

It was attended by more than 60 procurement officers from about 20 central government organisations. It will be followed by similar pan-India training sessions for all the central government procurement officers.
Binoy Kumar, DG(S&D), said that the GeM is a completely online and end-to-end integrated e-procurement portal for products and services that has been developed by DGS&D with technical support from NeGD.
He stated that more training sessions are planned for both government buyers as well as sellers in the coming days.