Country of origin must for items at GeM sale

New Delhi: The government procurement portal GeM has made it mandatory for sellers to mention “country of origin’’ on products they wish to sell through the platform, a move aimed at promoting Aatma Nirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India), a senior official said on Tuesday.

After making ‘country of origin’ for products mandatory on the government e-commerce platform, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has called a meeting of e-commerce companies on Wednesday. DPIIT will be discussing the proposal to make the ‘country of origin’ clause mandatory for them as well.

Representatives of ecommerce companies, including Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Nykaa and Pepperfry will attend the meeting, which will be held through video conferencing, sources said.

The Government eMarketplace (GeM)— which is a platform for procurement of goods and services by the government ministries and departments, public sector undertakings and other apex autonomous bodies of the central government—has made it mandatory for the products to mention their country of origin. This decision has to be viewed in the backdrop of increasing tension between India and China and public outcry for boycott of Chinese products.

Applauding the move, Confederation of Indian

Traders (Cait), the body representing small traders, on Tuesday raised the demand with commerce minister Piyush Goyal to make it mandatory for all e-commerce portals to invariably mention “country of origin” against each product sold by them.

Cait had, in fact, raised this demand on June 15 to the commerce minister. Cait finds that mostly all e-commerce companies are selling Chinese goods in large percentages on their portals and in the absence of country of origin provision, the customers are unaware about the origin of the country, which certainly influences the choice of the consumers.

Sources in the e-commerce industry said that the government has informed them that there will be a discussion on the topic.

With a large segment of consumers calling for boycott of Chinese products, such a move can hamper the sales of e-commerce companies, which is limping back to normalcy.