Commerce minister Piyush Goyal calls for strong legal action against frauds by entities on GeM

New Delhi: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal has called for “strong” legal action against buyers and suppliers who indulge in fraud on the public procurement portal Government eMarketplace (GeM).

While reviewing the progress of GeM, Goyal also advised inclusion of additional features to shorten delivery timelines.

“It was noted that more than 95% of all the physical order deliveries since April 2022 happened on time, in cases where online fulfilment and payment was done via GeM,” the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

GeM’s initiatives for tight monitoring and anomaly detection in procurement, including use of AI-ML (artificial intelligence and machine learning) to detect and report potential collusion and fraud were reviewed.

“Goyal suggested strong legal and punitive actions against buyers and suppliers against such activities,” the ministry said.

GeM also plans to use AI-ML to make proactive feature simplifications and product suggestions to buyers to ensure informed decision-making, it said.

Significant technical upgrades have been planned by GeM to enable cutting-edge use cases and improve user experience on the platform, according to the statement.