OREANDA-NEWS. The one-day hands on training program for procurement officers of Central Government Ministries/Departments was inaugurated today by Sh. Ashok Lavasa, Finance Secretary in New Delhi today. The training program has been jointly organized by DGS&D, National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM) and National e-Governance Division (NeGD).

The training session was attended by more than 60 procurement officers from about 20 Central Government organizations based in Delhi and is the first such training program to be followed by similar pan-India training sessions for all the Central Government procurement officers.

Smt. Radha Chauhan CEO of NeGD (MeitY) in her address mentioned about the concept of GeM and how it has been developed. She emphasised the importance of training and wanted the officers attending the programme to provide valuable feedback so that the system could be further improved. She mentioned that the system is secure and robust. Sh. Binoy Kumar, DG(S&D) in his address stated that GeM is a completely online and end-to-end integrated e-procurement portal for products and services that has been developed by DGS&D with technical support from NeGD. He stated that more training sessions are planned for both Government buyers as well as sellers in the coming days.

Speaking on the occasion, Sh. Ashok Lavasa complimented DGS&D, NEGD and NIFM for organizing the training program on the use of GeM for Government users. Sh. Lavasa highlighted that the very fact that GeM has been developed within a short span of 5 months owing to the collaborative efforts of DGS&D, NeGD, Finance Ministry and several other Government agencies indicates that collaboration between Government agencies can bring great results in short time. Sh. Lavasa also stated that GeM will enable Government buyers to make use of new technologies to procure goods and services in a more transparent, accountable and efficient manner and with the same ease and efficiency that is presently offered by e-commerce sites. He wanted that such training programme should be taken seriously and more and more officers should be trained including the State Governments.

The Finance Secretary requested the GeM team to make efforts to continuously improve the GeM portal and ensure that it remains free from manipulation and any unethical practices. Sh. Lavasa also stated that although it has been made mandatory on GeM to make payment to the vendors within 10 days of receipt of goods/services, efforts should be made to further reduce this time span as time is money and ultimately the cost of delayed payment is born by the Government. GeM has a potential to grow and will bring in a lot of credibility and comfort in procurement decision making within the Government.