New Delhi, Aug 10 (KNN) Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has warned sellers to stop pushing poor quality goods on the government e-marketplace (GeM), else they will be blacklisted from the entire government ecosystem.

''The unscrupulous sellers from pushing the poor-quality goods or charging exorbitant prices, as they will not only be blacklisted from the GeM portal but from the entire Government ecosystem,'' an official statement quoted him as saying while addressing the GeM-CII National Public Procurement Conclave 2020 on Sunday.

Goyal, also the railways minister, said that Indian Railways is committed to integrate with the GeM portal to move all its procurement to the platform. He said that the railways’ direct procurement of goods for its operations or its public sector undertakings or production units stood at about Rs 70,000 crore-75,000 crore.

“I am happy to share that GeM and Indian Railways are burning the midnight oil, working day and night to ensure this entire Rs 70,000 crore procurement on the GeM platform,” he said. “Our own belief is that it will save railways not less than 10-15 per cent and that could be a saving of as high as Rs 10,000 crore,” he added.

Lauding the success of GeM in becoming a game changer in the government procurement, Goyal called upon more and more buyers and sellers to join the system.

Expressing the confidence that GeM will be able to unlock the value and save money for the nation’s development, he said, ''it has helped in transparent, seamless, easy, efficient and faster procurements. All the information is available at one place, and any outlier trying to manipulate the system can be easily identified.''

''The government’s decision to ask the buyers to give interest for delayed payments in GeM is a significant step,'' he added

SomParkash, Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that the Conclave provided an excellent opportunity to Buyers and Sellers to interact.

While calling for reduction in government purchases from outside the GeM, he said, ''Women Entrepreneurs, start-ups, Artisans, Weavers, Self-Help Groups and MSMEs will find such platforms very useful.''

''GeM has evolved as an increasingly transparent, efficient and inclusive platform, with MSMEs making up over 57 per cent of the cumulative Gross Merchandise Value on GeM,'' said Talleen Kumar, CEO, GeM.

He further said that in order to provide an impetus to the Make in India initiative as part of the vision of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat”, and also to promote local products through the “Vocal for Local” initiative, the government has made it mandatory for all sellers on GeM to list the Country of Origin while registering new products.

''Over the next couple of months, GeM shall be rolling out GeM 4.0 – which will be anchored in the Unified Procurement System,'' Tallen added.