Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The government’s platform for public procurement Government eMarketplace (GeM) has crossed a whopping 50-lakh seller mark amid the growing number of registrations on the MSME registration portal Udyam which is integrated with the marketplace. The milestone was achieved around five months after GeM crossed 40 lakh sellers. Launched in August 2016, the initial 10 lakh sellers were registered in the first 4.5 years (till January 2021) of GeM’s operation while the rest 40 lakh sellers were onboarded in the following 20-month period.
As of August 22, 2022, 50.05 lakh sellers and service providers were registered on GeM, of which 8 lakh were micro and small enterprises with a 55.01 per cent share in the portal’s total order value. So far, 1.10 orders from the government including government departments, ministries, central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) involving transaction value of Rs 2.84 lakh crore have been processed on the GeM portal.
The seller count increased drastically after the launch of the Udyam portal by the government in July 2020. According to the data shared by GeM’s chief executive officer Prashant Kumar Singh at MSME Business Conclave in June this year organised by FE Aspire (Financial Express Online), the number of sellers increased by over 300 per cent from 3,47,254 in FY20 to 13,96,468 in FY21 and 228 per cent to 45,84,970 in FY22 in comparison to 67 per cent growth in FY20.
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“Most of these new registrations are because of integration with Udyam portal since 2020. 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,” Prashant Kumar Singh, CEO, GeM had told FE Aspire.
On the buyer side, 62,056 government entities have registered on the platform so far. While the buyer count continues to grow year on year, the growth rate itself has declined, indicating that probably most of the government departments and CPSEs have already onboarded the platform. According to the data, from 66 per cent growth in the number of buyers in FY19, the growth rate dipped to 28 per cent in FY20, 15 per cent in FY21, and 2 per cent in FY22.
GeM is targetting to double its GMV to Rs 2 lakh crore in the current financial year on the back of co-operatives it recently announced added to the marketplace as buyers and also work contracts for ministries and CPSEs. GeM’s GMV for FY22 stood at Rs 1.06 lakh crore, up 176 per cent from Rs 38,580 crore in FY21.
Meanwhile, the Udyam portal had crossed 1 crore registrations earlier this month and 50 lakh registrations in September last year.