Bihar to buy items from Centre’s portal

PATNA: The state government on Wednesday adopted the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a digital platform launched by

central government

in August 2016, to make all procurements for its offices.

Till now, GeM, hosted through a website, was used only by offices of paramilitary forces and other offices of central government in Bihar. According to official data, more 19,000 buyer organizations and 79,617 sellers and service providers are listed on the GeM with around 5 lakh items for procurement. Orders worth at least Rs5,287 crore has been placed nationwide till now though GeM. From a small eraser to items worth several lakh are available on this platform.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, while officially adopting the platform in Bihar, placed order for 20 packets of papers used for photocopying in one of the sections of finance department. “This will promote the Centre’s ‘Make in India’ scheme and make procurement process for government offices easier and transparent,” Modi said.

Joint secretary (finance) Uday Mishra gave a presentation before senior officials about GeM. He said the items on GeM platform are available at 10% less than their prices in the open market. He also said officials could choose time period of items delivery as per needs.

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

Mishra also said any procurement under Rs50,000 amount could be made directly from GeM on which items of several vendors would be available with price and technical specifications. “For procurement above Rs50,000 up to Rs30 lakh, bidding process will be adopted while reverse bidding process is available for purchases above Rs30 lakh,” he said.


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