Anti-covid products flying off GeM shelves



The state governments of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are on the forefront, making maximum such purchases from the portal worth ₹105 crore and ₹75 crore, respectively.

NEW DELHI: Covid-19 prevention goods are flying off the shelves of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), the government’s e-procurement portal, with sales to the tune of Rs 400 Crore of Covid-related items clocked so far.
The state governments of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are the forefront here, making maximum such purchases from the GeM portal worth Rs 105 Cr and 75 Cr respectively.

This includes governments and public enterprises buying in bulk goods like alcohol-based hand sanitisers, masks, PPEs, floor cleaners and surgical gloves from nearly 17,000 sellers. The last two weeks have seen the maximum procurement from the GeM portal worth Rs 67 lakh. Enthused by the response and bringing in price control of such items, the GeM portal has added ‘infrastructure’ categories to its portal regarding Covid-19, which will include the sale of equipment to set up ICU Wards, Isolation wards for asymptomatic and mild symptom patients and basic facilities for Covid hospital.

The GeM portal had shortened the procurement cycle for Covid-19 medical related items by reducing the bid cycle for such items to three days from existing ten days and gave an option to buyers to reduce the delivery period for such items to two days plus be able to filter local sellers for purchases up to Rs 5 lakh to enable faster delivery. GeM portal has also given priority product and brand approval for sellers under COVID-19 categories.

The Union Health Ministry has also asked states to also directly buy Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) from the suppliers onboarded on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal in addition to the supplies of PPEs being sent by the Centre. ET has accessed a Health Ministry letter in this regard to all states last month in which it has been mentioned that a host of suppliers, whose PPE products have been approved by designated laboratories of the Ministry of Textiles and Defence Research Development Establishment (DRDE), are being onboarded by the Centre on the GeM portal.

“Looking at the efforts being made by some states to procure PPEs, a need has been felt to facilitate states and central institutions in sourcing PPE coveralls directly. A large number of suppliers whose products have been approved are being onboarded on the GeM portal and any government entity can procure from them,” the Ministry has written. This is expected to be a quicker procurement process than of issuing tenders. “Each supplier on GeM has passed the quality standards prescribed by the Ministry of Health and has been given a Uniform Certification Code, the letter says.

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