New Delhi, July 11 (IANS) The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) has clocked a gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 1.25 lakh crore at the end of first quarter (April-June) of the current financial year (2024-25), representing a quarter-on-quarter growth of 136 per cent over last year’s GMV of Rs 52,670 crore in the same quarter.

In Q1, FY 24-25 services segment has been the prime mover clocking a GMV of more than Rs 80,500 crore representing a growth of 330 per cent over the corresponding period in FY 23-24.

Procurement by Central ministries including CPSEs surpassed Rs 1 lakh crore milestone in this period with Ministries of Coal, Defence and Petroleum & Gas emerging as the top procurers in this quarter. Of this Rs 1 Lakh crore GMV, CPSEs share accounted for more than Rs 91,000 crore.

“In Q1 FY 23-24, procurement by Central government bodies stood at Rs 42,500 Crore. This FY has seen a substantial surge in their procurement. As key participants, Central bodies have continued to drive procurement reforms, reaffirming their commitment to optimising resource allocation for national development,” said Prashant Kumar Singh, CEO, GeM.

GeM has led to more transparency, reducing opportunities for corruption, increasing participation of small-scale sellers in the marketplace and significantly improving time efficiency, he added.

“This reduction in transaction charges levied on the GeM platform by almost 33 to 96 per cent would greatly benefit our Sellers and is likely to make their offerings more competitive in the marketplace,” Singh said.

GeM has also launched an initiative called “The Aabhar Collection” as part of its #Vocalforlocal outlet store marketplace. The Aabhar collection showcases over 120 exquisite and hand-crafted gift items and hampers, featuring select products from One District One Product (ODOP) and Geographical Indication (GI) categories with prices ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 25,000 to be used by Government Buyers for all their official events/ ceremonies etc.

Launched in 2016 with an ambitious goal of building a robust domestic e-procurement landscape, GeM has reformulated a previously fragmented system into a comprehensive one-stop-solution that is widely used by all government buyers and serviced by pan India network of sellers and service providers, Singh added,

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 11 (IANS) Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Wednesday reviewed the progress in the sowing of the country’s kharif crops and directed officials to step up efforts to enhance the production of pulses.

As part of the goal to achieve self-sufficiency in pulse production, the minister reiterated that the Centre is committed to 100 per cent procurement for Urad, Arhar and Masur in all the states and called for generating awareness on the issue so that more and more farmers come forward for pulse cultivation.

He expressed happiness over the 50 per cent increase in the area of pulses cultivation during ongoing Kharif sowing this year, particularly for Tur and Urad.

Currently, pulses have to be imported to meet the shortfall in demand and prices of the crucial protein tend to firm up, adding to food inflation.

The minister was also briefed about the status of the monsoon, groundwater situation and availability of seeds and fertilisers.

The Union Minister also stressed the timely availability of fertilisers, both for Kharif and Rabi crops. The Department of Fertilisers was advised to ensure the availability of DAP fertiliser in accordance with the demand of states.

Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Sanjeev Chopra along with senior officials of the Ministry, officials from the Meteorological Department, Central Water Commission and Department of Fertilisers were also present during the meeting.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 11 (IANS) The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), which comes under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, on Thursday, warned users of multiple vulnerabilities in Node.js, which could allow an attacker to compromise the targeted system.

The affected software includes Node.js versions prior to 18.20.4 (LTS), 20.15.1 (LTS), and 22.4.1 (Current).

“Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Node.js which could be exploited by an attacker to obtain sensitive information, bypass security restrictions and execute arbitrary code on the targeted system,” said the CERT-In advisory.

According to the cyber agency, these vulnerabilities exist in Node.js due to an inadequate permission model that fails to restrict file stats “through the fs.lstat API, embedding of non-network imports in data URLs, improper handling of batch files in child_process.spawn/child_process.spawnSync, an error when the –allow-fs-write flag is used and improper processing of UNC paths by the Permission Model”.

Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to obtain sensitive information, bypass security restrictions and execute arbitrary code on the targeted system, the agency mentioned.

CERT-In advised users to apply appropriate security updates as mentioned by the company.

–IANS

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Kohima, July 11 (IANS) Nagaland has been adjudged as the best state in horticulture, officials said here on Thursday.

A Nagaland government official said that the prestigious Agriculture Leadership Awards 2024 adjudged the state as best in horticulture for its outstanding work in introducing innovative programmes and policies for horticulture development, which have positively touched the lives of many farmers and rural people.

Nagaland’s Minister for Women Resource Development and Horticulture, Salhoutuonuo Kruse received the award at the 15th Agriculture Leadership Conclave held in New Delhi on Wednesday night.

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, and Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan were present on the occasion.

The annual awards were instituted in 2008 for recognising excellence and leadership roles played by individuals and organisations towards the development of agriculture and bringing about rural prosperity.

Nagaland has achieved GI (Geographical Indication) registration of three horticultural crops — Naga Mircha, Naga Tree Tomato and Naga Sweet Cucumber.

According to the officials, the Department of Horticulture has also mobilised the formation of 13 Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) and so far an area of 6800 hectares was brought under organic certification.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 11 (IANS) Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday that while 12.5 crore jobs have been created in the Indian economy during the last 10 years only 2.9 crore jobs were created in the 10 years before 2014.

He told IANS that the figures had been compiled in an SBI report prepared by the bank’s Group Chief Economic Advisor Soumya Kanti Ghosh.

The number of jobs created in the financial years 2014-23 is a more than 4-fold increase from the 2.9 crore jobs created during 2004-14, according to the SBI report.

“Even if we exclude Agriculture, the total number of jobs created in Manufacturing and Services is at 8.9 crores during FY14-FY23 and 6.6 crores during FY04-FY14,” the report states.

The total employment reported by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) registered with the MSME Ministry has crossed the 20 crore mark, data from the Udyam registration portal shows.

As of July 4, 4.68 crore Udyam-registered MSMEs reported 20.19 crore jobs, including 2.32 crore jobs by GST-exempted informal micro-enterprises, up by 66 per cent from 12.1 crore jobs in July last year, showed ERD’s analysis.

–IANS

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