Business
Swarajya Staff
Feb 03, 2023, 09:14 AM | Updated 09:15 AM IST
Save & read from anywhere!
Bookmark stories for easy access on any device or the Swarajya app.
The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) has achieved a new milestone with Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of Rs 1.5 lakh crore till 1 February in the financial year 2023, and is on track to surpass its annual target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Since its inception, the platform has generated a cumulative GMV of over Rs 3 lakh crore and processed over 1.3 crore transactions.
GeM has over 66,000 government buyer organisations and 58 lakh sellers and service providers offering a wide range of products and services.
The platform features 11,000 product categories with 29 lakh listed products and 270 service categories with 2.5 lakh service offerings.
According to the Ministry, studies show that GeM saved the government at least 10 per cent on procurement, equating to Rs 30,000 crore in public money saved.
GeM was launched in 2016 by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with the aim of creating an efficient and transparent platform for public procurement activities.
Over the past 6.5 years, GeM has transformed the public procurement ecosystem through digitisation and automation, integrating all stakeholders and using analytics. This has resulted in a more efficient, transparent, and trustworthy platform that has helped the government achieve its goal of "Minimum Government, Maximum Governance."
The GeM platform enables multiple procurement modes (direct purchase, L1 procurement, bidding, reverse auction, bid followed by reverse auction). GeM has evolved as a trust-based platform and is contactless, paperless, and cashless, where authentication of users is done through API integration with respective domain databases, i.e., Aadhar, PAN, Aadhar, Start Up, GSTN, MCA21, etc., the ministry said.
Recently, GeM launched a campaign to boost procurement through states, assigning dedicated nodal officers to select states with a data-backed roadmap. This has already resulted in a 55 per cent year-over-year increase in GMV and improvement in the GeM Utilization Ratio (GUR) in these states.
GeM has also integrated with 1.5 lakh+ India Post offices and 5.2+ lakh Village Level Entrepreneurs via the CSCs for last-mile outreach and service delivery, the ministry said.