GeM | Government e-Market

General Terms and Conditions for enrolment of Buyer on GeM (Government e-Marketplace)

In the GeM Pilot (Phase), Central Government Ministries/Departments/State Governments including its attached/subordinate offices, Central Public Sector Units (CPSUs)/PSUs and Autonomous Bodies acting through its authorized officer(s) for and on behalf of President of India/Governor of state/CPSU/Autonomous Bodies, as the case may be, are authorized to register and purchase Goods/Services offered by “Vendor(s)/Seller(s)” on GeM. Gradually, the services shall be extended to other government users as well as territories.
On GeM, for purchases upto Rs.50,000/-, “Purchaser (s)/Buyer(s)” are authorised to source required items through any of the available suppliers on the GeM meeting requisite quality, specifications and delivery period. However, for purchases above Rs.50,000/-, “Purchaser (s)/Buyer(s)” are authorised to source required items through the supplier having lowest price amongst the available suppliers on the GeM meeting requisite quality, specifications and delivery period. Aforesaid, powers have been vested in the Government user departments so that they can meet their requirement of common user goods and services with the flexibility and speed of e-market place and relieve them from repeated mundane activity of bid management. It is important that these powers are used judiciously so that there is effective and efficient utilisation of precious government resources. Accordingly, it has been decided that every Ministry/Department/CPSU/ Autonomous Bodies shall nominate a primary user at the level of Deputy secretary/equivalent (or officer as referred in Office memorandum,( Office memorandum on clarification of HoD/Primary User on GeM. ) for using GeM Portal. This seniority has been kept keeping in view the flexibility of purchase provided to the government user using GeM as per GFR amendment vide Rule 141A.
Accordingly, the primary registration to the government users is granted at the level of Deputy secretary/equivalent officer in respective government departments. The GeM have the facility for aforesaid primary users to create subordinate secondary users in the system with specific role and responsibilities of Buyers, DDOs, Consignees and PAOs. The secondary users in the system shall be person of responsibilities as approved by primary user, but not below the rank of a section officer/equivalent. These authorised secondary users shall have the rights and privileges as assigned to them by the primary user. The secondary users can not create further users in the system.
The primary user can also create a supervisor in the system. The Supervisor in the system shall be Director/Deputy Secretary equivalent officer. All the activities carried out by the secondary users in the GeM are notified to the concerned Supervisor Officer apart from being notified to other concerned secondary users. For example, if Secondary User “A” places purchase order in GeM with Secondary User “B” as consignee and Secondary User “C” as PAO, the system notification shall be sent to Secondary Users “B” and “C” as soon as Secondary User “A” places online order in GeM apart from sending notification to concerned supervising/supervisory officer.
The secondary users can interact with GeM helpdesk to resolve day to day operational issues. However, issues requiring escalation shall be referred to at the level of Supervisor Officer.
The detailed guidelines for registration are detailed below in the succeeding sub paragraphs
- To create a “Purchaser (s)/Buyer(s)” account in GeM, HOD/Primary User ( Office memorandum on clarification of HoD/Primary User on GeM. ) in respective government departments should visit GeM at url:https://gem.gov.in/. “Organisational Information” and “Primary User Details” should be entered in GeM in the link “User registration Document” at Url: https://gem.gov.in/register/org/signup.
- For “Organisational Information”, the details of the user departments appear in drop down menu. User departments are just required to select the appropriate choices from drop down menu. In case, any of the “Purchaser (s)/Buyer(s)” department is not appearing in drop down menu, the “Purchaser (s)/Buyer(s)” should enter the details of their respective organisations under the head “others”. The same shall be appropriately incorporated in the database for future references.
- For “Primary User Details”, “HOD/DS/Equivalent officer” in respective government user departments shall enter their “Employee ID” and “Aadhaar Number” in the system. Based upon aforesaid information, their complete details including official email id (as per NIC records) and mobile number (as per Aadhaar database) shall be populated in the remaining cells of “Primary User Details”. Primary users are required to verify and ensure that the details as populated from “Employee ID” and “Aadhaar” Database are correct and currently in usage. In case, “email Id” as generated from “Employee ID” database is not valid/updated, user must take up with NIC to get their valid “email Id”. Only the users with valid “email Id” from NIC, are authorised to enrol in the system as government buyer. However, in case the mobile number, as generated from “Aadhaar”, is currently not in usage, GeM gives user the flexibility to update his mobile number in the system.
- The users are required to validate their email Id and mobile number through confirmation link on email and OTP on mobile.
- The Primary Users are also required to separately enter their official telephone number (landline/mobile) and NIC email Id of their Reporting officer/ Administrative Officer in their organisation.
- After details of “primary user” are validated by system, a confirmation mail shall be sent to the “Reporting Officer/Administrative officer in the buyer’s organisation” by the system for validating/authenticating the primary user. As soon as, Reporting Officer/Administrative officer’s validation/authentication is received by the system, the primary user account is activated in GeM.
- Primary users, in turn, can create secondary subordinate users in the system with specific roles of Buyers, DDOs, Consignees and PAOs. The primary users can also create a supervisor in the system to whom all the activities carried out by secondary subordinate users are notified. Primary user is the administrator of secondary subordinate users and supervisor under his control. He can modify the roles assigned to them.
- For the change/modification of primary user, if any, the on-going primary user, on transfer/superannuation, as the case may be, will hand over to his successor, who will enrol in the system, following the aforesaid prescribed drill and authenticate his account details.
- In case of transfer of secondary user, no charge hand over of Ids are required as primary user can terminate secondary user anytime and create new secondary user with the new roles as per the requirement of the organization.
- All the HoD of Department (Primary user) may create an email on gov.in/nic.in on post based account (Not in personal account). This post based email address should be used as Primary user ID.
Delivery Period: In order to give flexibility to the buyers in sourcing their requirements through GeM, provision has been made in e-bid and RA modules for indicating delivery period in terms of “number of days from date of placement of contract”. While stipulating delivery period in their bid documents, Buyers are advised to be careful since un-realistic delivery period stipulations may result in elimination of some genuine sellers, lack of competition may ultimately have impact on cost of procurement. While fixing delivery period in e-bid/ RA bid, buyers should not only take into consideration the quantity required and the essentiality of requirement of that quantity within stipulated time period but also the possible impact of shorter delivery period on competition in e-bidding / RA.
Buying from Single OEM: According to the provisions of GFR rule 141 A,GeM may be utilized by Governmentbuyersfor direct on-line purchases above Rs. 50,000/‐ also but such purchase has to be through the supplier having lowest price amongst the available suppliers on the GeM. In order to ensure thatbuyersselect only L-1 available offer, the GeM portal requires thatbuyerfirst compares product.While comparing, care should be taken that comparison has to be done between products of at least two different Manufacturers / OEMs. For L-1 buying, comparison has to be made between products of at least two different OEMs.If a buyer wants to buy any specific OEM’s product, then she/he can choose PAC buying in administrative filters after obtaining necessary approvals of competent authority and can buy without comparing products from two different OEMSs.
The Market Prices of various Goods and Services as offered by sellers on GeM are offer prices. For getting best competitive rates, GeM recommends use of the bidding tool available on the portal.