Ease of doing business for MSMEs: Weeks after public procurement of goods and services by central government ministries and departments crossed Rs 3 lakh crore from the business-to-government portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM), the order volume has now crossed the whopping 12 million or 1.2 crores amid government’s growing focus on procuring from MSMEs via GeM. Launched in August 2016, the portal had processed 12,001,179 orders worth Rs 322,013 crore from 63,564 buyers on the platform, data on GeM at the time of filing this report showed. The order volume nearly doubled from 67 lakh orders as of June 2021.
The growth comes amid the government setting the target of procuring all its goods and services through GeM). Chairing a review meeting of GeM in July this year, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had emphasized that Prime Minister has set a target of 100 per cent procurement to be made through GeM by the end of the current financial year.
While the current share of GeM in public procurement could not be ascertained but Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam in August last year at a CII event noted that the portal tapped only 5 per cent of the total government purchases of around Rs 20 lakh crore a year even as it has helped save 10 per cent in cost — around Rs 10,000 crore in a cumulative procurement of Rs 1 lakh crore in five years.
GeM was also hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month for enabling MSMEs’ participation in government tenders. Addressing the launch of 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs) across the country, PM Modi said, “Today our small businesses and MSMEs are participating in government tenders through platforms like GeM. “You can imagine how the local economy of the country and our mission of Vocal for Local have benefitted through this.”
The platform currently has 53.53 lakh registered sellers, of which 8.18 lakh are micro and small sellers. The MSE sellers had an order value share of 55.31 per cent. The portal is looking to double its turnover to over Rs 2 lakh crore in this fiscal from Rs 1 lakh crore in FY22, GeM CEO Prashant Kumar Singh had said at the MSME Business Conclave organised by FE Aspire in June this year.