Government makes it mandatory for sellers to mention 'country of origin' on products for GeM

The Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a Special Purpose Vehicle under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has made it mandatory for sellers to enter the country of origin while registering all new products on GeM, to promote `Make in India` and `Aatmanirbhar Bharat`, news agency ANI reported.

Moreover, sellers who had already uploaded their products before are being reminded to update the country of origin, failing which their products will be removed from the GeM, the report added.

The GeM has also enabled a provision for indicating the percentage of local contents in the listed products and has also enabled the `Make in India` feature on its portal.

With this, the buyers can now choose to buy only those products which meet the minimum 50 per cent local content criteria.

Moreover, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, "Buyers can now reserve any bid for Class I Local suppliers (Local Content > 50 per cent). For those Bids below INR 200 crore, only Class I and Class II Local Suppliers (Local content > 50 per cent and > 20 per cent respectively) are eligible to bid, with Class I supplier getting purchase preference." 

(With inputs from ANI)