Ease of doing business for MSMEs: Public procurement of goods and services by central government ministries and departments has crossed Rs 3 lakh crore from the business-to-government portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) on the back of a surge in purchase activity, showed official data. The cumulative transaction value of goods and services bought by government ministries from MSMEs through the GeM portal grew 116 per cent to Rs 3.11 lakh crore from Rs 1.44 lakh crore during October last year.

In comparison to pre-Covid transaction value, which stood at Rs 35,462 crore during October 2019, the growth has been nearly 800 per cent, indicating Covid-led tailwinds fuelling the government’s purchases from MSMEs through the GeM portal launched in August 2016.

Another likely factor pushing the transaction value up has been the surge in the number of sellers on the platform. The number of MSMEs selling on the platform jumped 80 per cent from 29 lakh in October last year and a massive 1,714 per cent from 2.88 lakh during October 2019 to 52 lakh currently, data from the portal showed. The surge in the number of sellers has been due to the integration of the GeM portal with the MSME registration portal Udyam launched in July 2020.

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“Most of these new registrations are because of integration with Udyam portal since last year. So, whosoever is coming onto the Udyam portal is directly put onto the GeM portal as well. Hence, not all sellers, who opt for simultaneous GeM registration, might be selling on the marketplace. Once they opt for Gem registration, we email them for completing their registration with the listing of goods, etc., while their profile is auto-populated on the GeM portal,” GeM CEO Prashant Kumar Singh had told FE Aspire. 

The marketplace recorded Rs 106,647 crore turnover in FY22 and is expected to double it in FY23, according to Singh. “This growth of Rs 1.06 lakh crore is 17 times more than the first year when GeM came into being and almost 55 per cent of the cumulative (turnover) in the previous financial (year). This shows excellent growth from MSMEs, PSUs, and states,” he had said.

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