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New Delhi: The Government of India is preparing to roll out global tender facilities on the Digital Commerce portal of the Government of India which will allow all other global firms along with British firms. To bid for government tenders, a senior official said.
The government follows the successful conclusion of the interaction for the Indo-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA), a step on the e-Marketplace (GEM) portal.
These facilities are currently unavailable on the stage, which are used by agencies of state and central government departments to buy and sell goods and services. Once introduced, they will enable British and other foreign suppliers to participate in tenders floating by buyers of the Government of India.
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According to the GEM Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mihir Kumar, the global tendering feature will open the stage for international suppliers, while a ‘rate contract’ option will allow government buyers to purchase goods and services at pre-eminent prices for a certain period of time-reducing the need to bid from three months to one year.
“We are working on it, and these features will be added to the Gem portal in the coming months,” Kumar said. He did not specify a time -line for the rollout.
Currently, global goods and services are purchased by the government directly by individual departments, which record contracts with foreign suppliers on their own. These transactions are done outside the GEM portal, as the platform currently does not support global tendering.
According to a policy paper of the UK government, India has “legally guaranteed access” in its huge government procurement market under the FTA. This will enable British businesses to bid for about 40,000 Indians of India annually, which is an estimated £ 38 billion.
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However, the Economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) has warned that the UK firms are allowing the firms to participate in the purchase of the Central Government of India, which can potentially crowd Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which depend a lot on the preferential access to such contracts. The UK move makes a uniform compromise with the UAE.
“Under this deal, British firms can bid for Indian tenders, and people with at least 20% UK content will be classified as local suppliers of class 2 under the Make in India Policy of India. It effectively expands preferable treatment, which is basically for domestic firms, for foreign suppliers,” GTRI’s co-Faudor Ajay Srivastav.
What is the rate contract?
A rate contract is an agreement to supply goods or services at a fixed price for a specified period between a buyer and a seller. Once the contract is implemented, the seller has to distribute the items at the agreed rate, even if the market prices rise during the contract period.
Purchase through the GEM portal is mandatory for all central government ministries and departments.
Targeting platform transactions 7 trillions in 2025-26, from top 5.42 trillion in 2024-25. Currently, 40–50% annual government procurement is conducted through gems.
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Kumar said, “We will focus on states this year. We have to increase the footprint of the states.”
He said that Gem is looking at some large -scale tenders, including 5,000 crore equipment for Akash missile system 5,085 crores for vaccines.
The platform All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), with the lives of more than 13 million people for geographical information systems and insurance solutions, also supports special services on wet leases of chartered flights and CT scanners, as well as describes its adaptability to handle complex, mission-curvature proxies.
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