Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The acquire of Covid-associated items by government departments, organisations, and public sector units from MSME sellers through Amazon of public procurement — Government eMarketplace (GeM) had dropped 44 per cent in terms of order worth to Rs 1,135.9 crore for the duration of December 2020-February 2021 period from Rs 2,015.5 crore for the duration of September-November 2020, according to the GeM information. Importantly, the decline in spending followed the drop in everyday new Covid situations in the nation from as higher as 96,000 as of September 17, 2020, to about 9,000 as of February 15, 2021. Daily new situations as of December 1, 2020, stood at more than 36,000. However, purchases for the duration of the March-May period are probably to shoot up once again amid the second Covid wave.
Comments from GeM CEO Talleen Kumar weren’t right away offered for this story.
The decline in order worth was across purchasing channels. The quantity spent through bidding and reverse auction on GeM for healthcare category items such as Rapid Antigen Test kits, Real-Time PCR Test kits, alcohol-based sanitizers, ICU ventilators, and so forth. had declined to Rs 376.4 crore for the duration of the December-February period from Rs 1,276.5 crore for the duration of September-November, as per the GeM information. Similarly, procurement by means of the other two modes: direct acquire and purchasing from sellers getting the lowest price tag of goods (L1) also contracted slightly to Rs 233.3 crore from Rs 284.2 crore for the duration of the stated period. For the acquire of auxiliary goods which includes dust bins, steel tables, desktop computer systems, plastic moulded chairs, and so forth., as effectively, the order worth through bidding and reverse auction routes dropped to Rs 300 crore from Rs 353.2 crore. However, acquire through direct acquire and L1 channels for auxiliary goods jumped to Rs 226.2 crore from Rs 137.6 crore.
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Even as the order worth witnessed a close to 50 per cent decline for the duration of the December-February period vis-à-vis September-November quarter, the order volume or the quantity of orders placed on GeM was 21.6 per cent larger. A total of 1,29,903 orders had been placed for the duration of December-February up from 1,06,815 orders placed for the duration of September-November. Among the major healthcare items bought because March 1, 2020, had been Rapid Antigen Test Kits that had 27.4 per cent share of Rs 3,666 crore order worth of healthcare items so far though desktop computer systems was the major auxiliary solution with a share of 59.8 per cent of Rs 2,137 crore total order worth of the auxiliary category.
31,767 GeM sellers had been listed beneath the healthcare category though the auxiliary category had 34,387 sellers out of the total 17.47 lakh sellers on GeM, as of April 19, 2021, which integrated 6.89 lakh micro and tiny sellers. The government had back in April last year, by means of a notification, urged MSMEs in manufacturing or provide of healthcare and associated gear to register as a supplier on GeM. The choice had come amid the reported shortage of masks and ventilators in the nation right after the pandemic broke out.