‘Country of Origin’ must be mentioned, GeM mandates sellers to push Aatma Nirbhar Bharat

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GeM India

Sellers are now required to clearly mention the ‘country of origin’ of the products if they wish to sell it through the government procurement portal GeM. The new rule was made mandatory by GeM to promote the idea of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat or self-reliant India, where buyers and sellers are being urged to invest in Indian-made products.

“GeM has take a significant step towards Aatma Nirbhar Bharat and has made it mandatory for sellers to enter the country of origin while registering all new products on GeM,” said the CEO Talleen Kumar to PTI on Tuesday.

Sellers who had already uploaded their products before the announcement of the new mandate are being regularly asked to update the product information with country of origin details. Failing to do so will lead to the removal of the products from the platform.

A new provision for disclosing the percentage of locally sourced ingredients in a product has been enabled as well to further boost the campaign. Features like Make in India filter have also been added for the same cause.

“With this new feature now, the country of origin, as well as the local content percentage, are visible in the marketplace for all items. More importantly, the Make in India filter has now been enabled on the portal. Buyers can choose to buy only those products that meet the minimum 50 percent local content criteria,” Kumar said in his statement.

GeM will be revamping their entire portal soon, with more powerful search engine, new brand and product inclusions, and quicker creation of categories for goods and services through tender analysis. The portal, which was launched in August 2016 for online buying and selling of goods and services, is currently accessible to state and central government departments, PSUs, ministries, and Central Armed Forces only.

Based on the categories of revised public procurement (Preference to Make in India), Order 2017, sellers get preference on the portal depending on how much of their content is sourced from within the country.

Presently, there are 3,94,461 sellers and service providers on the GeM portal selling 18,30,688 goods and services. From furniture and automobiles to IT services and waste management to paintings and handmade products sold by tribal communities, the portal has it all.