Ease of doing business for MSMEs: The integration of India’s postal system India Post and Common Service Center (CSC) with the government’s e-commerce portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is finally operational. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday flagged off the rollout to enable last-mile (rural/village-level) government buyers, service providers, and sellers particularly women and tribal entrepreneurs, self-help groups [SHGs], artisans and weavers in the public procurement process. The launch comes around seven months after India Post was integrated with GeM in May this year followed by a memorandum of understanding signed between GeM, CSC and India Post in the same month.
The integration and MoU allow India Post to provide logistics service into the remotest parts of the country to sellers and buyers transacting via GeM. On the other hand, over 5.2 lakh Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE) under CSC-Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and around more than 1.5 lakh India Post Office (PO-CSC) operators across India are being trained to assist buyers with buyer registration and sellers and service providers with seller registration along with product cataloguing and uploading, management, order acceptance, fulfilment and invoice generation functionality on the GeM portal, the commerce ministry said during the rollout at an event.
“We are democratising GeM further with its integration with Common Service Centres & India Post,” said Goyal announcing the rollout at the event.
CSC is the government’s multiple-services-single-point model for providing facilities including essential public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, etc., at a single geographical location while CSC e-Governance Services India Limited is the SPV company incorporated in 2009 by the government to oversee implementation of the CSC model.
FE Aspire had reported GeM’s plan to integrate with India Post exclusively in November last year.
“India Post integration will be of help specifically to micro sellers who find challenges in getting government orders due to lack of enough packaging and transportation capacities to deliver orders to every nook and corner of the country. Since India Post is available in the country’s deep interiors as well, the delivery obstacle will be removed for such sellers,” GeM CEO Prashant Kumar Singh had told FE Aspire. The deliveries so far were managed by the sellers themselves.
Moreover, a vernacular language-based training curriculum in print and digital media for CSCs and India Post staff based on the requirement of the participants is being developed by GeM in consultation with CSC-SPV and the Department of Posts, the commerce ministry had noted in a statement announcing the MoU in May. With respect to the charges, rates for packaging materials and shipment of packages through the India Post website, online, print and office communication channels will be shared with CSCs.
The government had also noted that the Department of Posts will also ensure the availability of India Post packaging material including boxes, tapes, bubble wraps, flyers and air sacks at the nearest post offices for CSCs. The department will also facilitate the pick-up, transmission and delivery of Speed Post and Business Parcel and ensure priority processing of all GeM-labelled packages. Business Parcel is India Post’s premium B2B service offering door-step pick-up and delivery of packages with offerings such as cash on delivery, discounts, and no compulsory coverage of insurance for consignments.
