The public procurement portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) for MSMEs to sell goods directly to the government and public enterprises has surpassed the previous fiscal’s order volume in the current financial year. The total volume of goods and services procured by the government via GeM, which stood at 50.36 lakh in FY23, was surpassed earlier this month, data from the portal showed. As of Tuesday, GeM had processed 50.60 lakh orders in the current financial year, indicating growth in the purchase of goods and services by different government departments and public sector enterprises from MSMEs.
The order value of goods sold in FY23 was Rs 2.01 lakh crore in comparison to Rs 3.43 lakh crore worth of orders already processed in the current fiscal so far, growing by 70 per cent.
Out of the total order value processed on GeM so far, a significant 49.6 per cent belonged to orders fulfilled by micro and small enterprises.
Micro and small enterprises are getting major business from public procurement portal GeM and they are expected to sell goods and services worth over USD 20 billion by the end of this fiscal, PTI had reported quoting GeM CEO PK Singh in November last year.
“Out of the total procurement of goods and services since 2016, 50 per cent are coming from micro and small enterprises,” Singh had said. From $5 million in 2016-17, the procurement jumped to $5 billion in 2020-21 and this fiscal it “will be in excess of $20 billion,” Singh had said as per the report.
The portal currently has 1.45 lakh primary buyers and 2.13 lakh secondary buyers. In terms of categories, nearly 12,000 product categories and 320 service categories enable the procurement of different goods and services.
Among buyers, the defence ministry has been one of the top procurers of goods via GeM. The ministry became the only ministry to cross the figure of Rs 1 lakh crore in gross merchandise value (GMV) of procurement through GeM since its inception in 2016, the ministry had said in a statement on February 15.
As of February 13 in the current fiscal year, the ministry has placed orders worth around Rs 46,000 crore vis-a-vis Rs 28,732.90 crore in FY23 and Rs 15,091.30 crore in FY22.
