The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCC&I) partnered with the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India organized an "Interactive Webinar on GeM - One Stop Solution for Smarter Procurement" on August 12, 2020 on Webex virtual platform for MSMEs. The webinar was attended by more than 160 MSMEs from West Bengal. GeM is the National Public Procurement Portal for providing procurement of goods and services required by Central and State Government organizations, PSUs, CPSUs, DPSUs, etc. The webinar was addressed by senior officials of GeM, including the Deputy CEOs and other senior officials.

Shri S K Jain, Deputy CEO, GeM and State Nodal Officer for West Bengal from GeM participated in the webinar and interacted with the participants. Mr. Biswajit Sarkar, State Business Facilitator, GeM gave a detailed presentation on GeM and how sellers can register themselves on the GeM portal.

The webinar had an interactive session, where senior officials, including Mr. Jain, from GeM interacted and responded to the queries of the MSMEs, after the presentation by Mr. Sarkar. This helped the participants understand how they could leverage their businesses by registering on the platform. Further, the MSMEs already registered on the GeM platform shared their experience with the GeM officials, helping GeM to prepare a way forward to take appropriate actions.

Professor Dr. Siddhartha Das, Senior Member, The BCC&I, and Managing Director of Science and Technology Entrepreneurs' Park, IIT Kharagpur, mentioned GeM is a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-marketplace that enables procurement of common use goods and services with minimum human interface. Main benefits include transparency, ease of buying, and savings to the Government. It also supports the Make in India initiative of the Government. Dr. Das is also the Professor of the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.

Dr. Arijit Banerjee, Director, RAMAESIS RPL said "Ramaesis RPL has been a pioneer in Bio toilet powered by The Toilet Man of Bengal, a social entrepreneurship which works to keep the environment green and clean for tomorrow". GeM has given wings to all especially by including MSME with transparency in procurement and 20% representation in Public Procurement, handling delayed payment issues by imposing a penalty to buyers, and also using the same penalty amount for the furtherance of training and propagation. It's the future of procurement as today and onwards everything is AI-driven and we need to tune into it to grow and live up to the expectations of Atma Nirbhar Bharat, all working together GeM can be a booster to create GEMS from its GEM entrepreneurs. Dr. Banerjee, popularly known as the Toilet Man of Bengal is also the winner of MSME Awards, 2020. Dr. Anjan Ghosh, Senior Advisor of the Centre of Excellence for MSMEs (an initiative by The BCC&I), who was also the former Vice President, Total Quality Management of Exide Industries provided the Vote of Thanks and also discussed the Way Forward.