Bihar adopts centre’s e-marketplace for govt procurement

PATNA: The state government on Wednesday adopted a digital platform through which now procurement for government offices would be done.

Government e-Marketplace (GeM) was launched by the Centre in August 2016 to make procurement for central government offices hassle free and transparent.

Till now, GeM, hosted through a website, was used only by offices of para-military forces and other offices of the central government in Bihar.

According to an official data, more than 19000 buyer organisations and 79617 sellers and service providers are present on GeM with around 5 lakh items for procurement. Orders worth at least Rs 5287 crore have been placed nationwide till now though the platform. From a small eraser to items worth several lakh are available on the GeM.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, while officially adopting the platform, placed an order of 20 packets of papers for one of the section of the finance department.

“This will promote the central government’s scheme of Make in India and would make procurement process for government offices easier and transparent,” Modi said.

Meanwhile, finance department joint secretary Uday Mishra also gave a presentation before senior officials of other departments about the digital platform at old secretariat.

He said that the prices of the items available for sale are 10% less on GeM platform in comparison to that of open market price. He said that officials could choose time period of item delivery according to their need.

“If any office, even after receiving item, does uploads purchase bill for payment to supplier within ten days on GeM platform, 80% of the total purchase amount would be automatically credited into supplier’s account. Even if in next 30 days, purchase bill is not uploaded, rest 20% of the purchase amount would also be credited automatically from a dedicated government fund to supplier’s account,” Mishra said adding that the GeM platform is integrated with Adhaar, PAN and GSTN database.

Mishra said that procurement under Rs 50,000 could be made directly from GeM on which items of several vendors would be available with price and technical specification.

“For procurement above Rs 50,000 to Rs 30 lakh, bidding process would be adopted while for above Rs 30 lakh worth of items, reverse bidding process would be available,” he said.