The order value of goods and services sold by MSMEs to the government’s departments, public sector units, and ministries via the e-commerce portal Government eMarketplace (GeM) has doubled in the financial year 2023-24 from the previous fiscal.
According to the data from the portal, GeM’s total order value or gross merchandise value (GMV) has grown to Rs 4 lakh crore (Rs 4,00,245) at the time of filing this report in the current fiscal from Rs 2.01 lakh crore (Rs 2,01,463) in the entire FY23, on the back of growth in goods and services procured by various government departments and enterprises.
A significant 49.37 per cent (Rs 1.97 lakh crore) of the order value or GMV came from micro and small enterprise (MSE) sellers on the public procurement portal. This is likely to hit the Rs 2-lakh-crore mark by March-end as expected by GeM earlier.
MSEs are getting major business from public procurement portal GeM and they are expected to sell goods and services worth over $20 billion by the end of this fiscal, PTI had reported quoting GeM CEO PK Singh in November last year.
In terms of order volume, GeM recorded 23.6 per cent growth in the current financial year from FY23. Total orders processed on GeM stood at 62.26 lakh in FY24 vis-a-vis 50.36 lakh in FY23.
Among the top buyers from GeM, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has procured goods worth Rs 1 lakh crore since the launch of the portal in August 2016. According to a statement from the Commerce Ministry in February this year, transactions worth around Rs 45,800 crore out of Rs 1 lakh crore were awarded in the current financial year.
From procurement of general store items like eggs to missile systems and critical defence acquisitions, GeM has helped MoD execute more than 5.47 lakh orders.
While procurement of goods has remained the mainstay of GeM’s growth, the procurement of services has also scaled significantly. As per the Commerce Ministry data, services GMV has grown from nearly Rs 8,500 crore in FY21 to nearly Rs 66,000 crore in FY23 to nearly Rs 1,82,000 crore as of February 22 in the current fiscal — – a significant increase of nearly 176 per cent from last fiscal year.
“In February 2024, services procurement has been phenomenal, contributing to nearly 80% of the total order value transacted on GeM. The share of procurement of services in overall procurement has exceeded the 50 per cent mark in the current financial year,” the ministry said in a statement in February this year.