Piyush Goyal calls for strong legal and punitive actions against fraudulent activities on GeM portal.

• Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has called for strong legal and punitive actions against fraudulent activities on Government e Marketplace- GeM portal.
• The Minister said this while reviewing the progress of GeM in New Delhi.
• He said, in addition to detecting anomalies, GeM also plans to use Artificial Intelligence-Machine Learning to make proactive feature simplifications and product suggestions to buyers to ensure informed decision-making and savings in public spendings.
• Goyal also stressed on the need to bring all public procurement online to promote economies of scale and social Inclusiveness.
• The Minister suggested bringing in end-to-end online fulfillment and payment for all transactions by buyers on GeM and to improve monitoring of delivery against timelines.
• Significant technical upgrades have been planned by GeM to enable cutting edge use cases and improve user experience on the platform.

About GeM

• GeM is a short form of one stop Government e-Market Place hosted by DGS&D where common user goods and services can be procured.
• GeM is dynamic, self-sustaining and user friendly portal for making procurement by Government officers.
• The portal was launched on 9^thAugust 2016 by the Commerce & Industry Minister.
• Procurement on GeM has been authorized by General Financial Rules by making necessary changes in government rules. Presently more than 7400 products in about 150 product categories and hiring of transport service are available on GeM POC portal. Transactions for more than Rs 140 Crore have already been processed through GeM.
• GeM is a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-market place that enables procurement of common use goods and services with minimal human interface.