The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
NEW DELHI, MARCH 24, 2022
Riding on a sharp increase in buying activities by different ministries and departments, procurement of goods and services from government portal GeM has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore during the current financial year registering a 160 per cent growth as compared to the previous fiscal, GeM CEO Prashant Kumar Singh said on Thursday.
The Government e-Market (GeM) portal was launched on August 9, 2016, for online purchases of goods and services by all the central government ministries and departments.
Earlier, the portal had crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark in about four-and-a-half years but now this was achieved during the current fiscal, Singh informed.
He expressed confidence that during the next fiscal, the procurement value may cross Rs 1.5 lakh crore.
Referring to the share of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs), Singh said that approximately Rs. 43,000 crore worth procurement was done by CPSEs on GeM, showing an approximate growth of 508 per cent as compared to the previous fiscal. He also asserted that States continued to be an important stakeholder with approximately 30 per cent contribution to total Gross Merchandize Value (GMV).
Highlighting the role played by GeM in ushering in inclusion in government procurement, Singh said that GeM has taken a host of steps to onboard products of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), tribal communities, craftsmen, weavers, and MSMEs. 57 per cent of the total business on GeM has come through the MSME units and over 6% has been contributed by female entrepreneurs. It may be noted that the number of women sellers and entrepreneurs on GeM has grown 6 times in a year.
GeM is integrating with Panchayati Raj Institutions to allow online buying and selling by the Panchayats at the grassroot level. The pilot in Gurgaon district panchayats has been successfully completed. Gem is in an advanced stage of integration with IndiaPost for extending logistics services at the grassroot level.
GeM SAHAY is an initiative to facilitate small sellers to avail credit financing from various integrated Lenders for the Orders received on GeM Portal.The Forward auction module has been launched facilitating government Auctioneers to auction assets using multiple auction modes and monitor the complete selling life cycle of their assets.
GeM platform supports advanced analytics framework to identify anomalous behaviour and transactions, market intelligence, demand/price forecasting and procurement planning/monitoring. GeM now has integration with 24 CPSEs ERP systems for post order information exchange. In total over 3 Lakh orders worth Rs. 42,000 Crore were exchanged via the integration.
