Public procurement: Hailing the completion of the seven-year journey of the government’s e-commerce portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) on Wednesday, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on X (formerly Twitter) that the portal has emerged as a trusted platform for all buyers & sellers. “It has truly transformed India’s procurement landscape by ensuring efficiency, transparency & inclusivity,” Goyal said. The GeM was launched on August 9, 2016, for ease in the public procurement process.

According to the GeM data, the marketplace grew to 67.06 lakh sellers and service providers in the past seven years, of which more than 8.43 lakh were micro and small enterprises registered across 11,918 product categories and 301 services categories on the platform. Moreover, there were 34.92 lakh products and 2.78 lakh services available.

The platform currently has 70,792 listed buyers on the platform which include government ministries, public sector units, and departments. So far, it crossed the order value of Rs 4.78 lakh crores, of which 52.09 per cent of the order value belonged to the micro and small enterprises.

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In FY23, GeM registered 88 per cent growth in its gross merchandise value (GMV) or order value, reaching an all-time high of Rs 2 lakh crore from Rs 1.06 lakh crore in FY22. Hailing GeM’s growth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said on X, “Excellent! @GeM_India has given us a glimpse of the energy and enterprise of the people of India. It has ensured prosperity and better markets for many citizens.”

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 The top buyer of MSME goods from GeM was the defence ministry in FY23 which nearly doubled its online procurement from the previous fiscal. The ministry had made purchases worth Rs 28,732.9 crore in FY23, up by 90.4 per cent from Rs 15,090.8 crore worth of goods and services bought in FY22.

The government had spent Rs 60,432 crore on procurement from MSEs under the Public Procurement Policy in FY23 — 42 per cent more than the set target of Rs 42,705 crore.

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