Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a national procurement portal, is eyeing an annual procurement of Rs 2 lakh crore during FY23, following a surge in its adoption, CEO Prashant Kumar Singh said.
“In the first four months of the current financial year, we did a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of ₹60,000 crore and hence, ₹2 lakh crore is achievable,” he said in an interview.
Describing the growth of public procurement as unprecedented, he said that since inception, it took nearly four-and-a-half years to reach ₹1 lakh crore (March 2021) earlier, while in the last fiscal, the GMV was ₹1.70. Lakh crores. The cumulative GMV till date is ₹ 2.86 Lakh Crore.
According to him, this was due to heavy participation of buyers from the Central/State Governments, Central/State PSUs and MSEs. It was in the ratio of 30%, 30% and 40% respectively.
Incidentally, it is mandatory for the Central Government and PSUs to procure through GeM.
However, Mr Singh said that the participation of southern states in GeM was low, as they had their own portal and felt their doors open. [to GeM] would be detrimental to the vendors in the state.
“Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are progressive states and have their own portals. Portals are dated. They don’t have a marketplace like GeM. It does not have visibility and sellers do not get better prices for the products,” he said.
GeM officials have initiated interaction with 11 state government officials to allay their fears and motivate and educate MSEs through seminars and events.
In addition, a help desk in regional languages has been created to assist the MSEs. Work is underway to provide Terms & Conditions and FAQs in major regional languages.
“We are here to develop vendor base on GeM and help MSEs to improve their market access and gain more share in public procurement, thereby boosting the economy of the state,” he said. Citing figures, Mr Singh said Uttar Pradesh tops in procurement with Rs 11,000 crore, followed by Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. The cumulative procurement by Tamil Nadu since inception was ₹1,090 crore. Although there are many comparable portals around the world, GeM has moved up to the fourth position with a GMV of $28 billion in no time. The top three portals are from Korea, USA and Singapore.
“Our target is to reach $30 billion. States like UP can procure more than Rs 50,000 crore and we can do it easily with the active participation of other states.