GeM to seek Centre’s nod to auction work contracts

About GeM

Launched in 2016, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is a 100 percent government-owned company setup under the aegis of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
It is a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-market place that enables procurement of common use goods and services with minimal human interface. GeM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement.
GeM was developed with the technical support of the National eGovernance Division under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

In 2017, the government made it mandatory for all the departments and ministries to source goods and services from the GeM.
At present, the platform is open for procurement by all government buyers: central and state ministries, departments, public sector enterprises, autonomous institutions, local bodies, etc. Last year, the government gave its approval for expanding the mandate of GeM to allow procurement by Cooperatives as buyers on GeM.
As per existing mandate, GeM is not available for use by private sector buyers. Suppliers (sellers) can be from across all segments: government or private.

Why in News?

The Government e Marketplace (GeM) plans to seek the Centre’s approval to enable work contracts for construction and building projects to also be bid out through the platform with a transparent monitoring mechanism to assess the progress in such contracts.
This is part of a broader reboot of the GeM platform, which is now used for everything from critical defence procurements to services like aircraft chartering and printing of election-related material, envisaged for the coming year.
The planned upgrade includes a revamp of its online interface to switch to an open Application Programming Interface (API) architecture, that will allow individual departments, States, and local bodies to create customised micro-procurement portals with multi-lingual interfaces and flexibilities for local rules.
Launched in May 2016, the GeM platform offers over 12,000 product and 320 service categories generally sought by central and State government departments, and has even onboarded 90,000 Gram Panchayats as buyers.

Today Current Affairs Upsc Exam Syllabus & Previous Yearpaper.