Govt’s e-commerce portal asks sellers to specify country origin of products

The government’s e-commerce platform has made it mandatory for sellers to specify the country of origin while registering all new products on the portal.

The demand for Government e-Marketplace (GeM), which comes under the Commerce and Industry Ministry, specifying country of origin has been gaining ground as India and China face-off at the Ladakh border. Trader associations have been at the forefront of these demands, while rising nationalist sentiment, especially on social media, has been to boycott China-made products and services.

The commerce ministry said in a statement: “sellers who have already uploaded their products before the introduction of this new feature on GeM, are being reminded regularly to update the country of origin, with a warning that their products shall be removed from GeM if they fail to update the same. GeM has taken this significant step to promote ‘Make in India’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.”

GeM has also enabled a provision for indication of the percentage of local content in products. A “Make in India” filter has also been enabled on portal.

Buyers can now reserve any bid for Class I local suppliers (Local Content greater than 50 per cent). For those bids below Rs 200 crore, only Class I and Class II Local Suppliers (Local content greater than 20 per cent) will be eligible to bid, with Class I suppliers getting purchase preference.

Small trader body Confederation of All India Traders welcomed the move.

Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT’s president, and B C Bhartia, secretary general, said the same provision to declare country of origin should also be applicable on all e-commerce portals in the country.

The Association had raised this demand on 15 June to the Commerce Minister in the wake of the fact that mostly all e-commerce companies are selling Chinese goods in large percentages on their portals, they added.