The government has embarked on a major exercise asking all ministries to map their ‘procurement potential’ for the current fiscal and aim for maximum procurement through the Government E-Marketplace (GeM), popularly known as the ‘government’s Amazon’.
This comes after the GeM hit a record Rs 2-lakh-crore mark in the last fiscal in procurement of goods and services, double from the last fiscal, as the central and state governments chose the GeM for procurement. The GeM is now dreaming bigger, aiming for the Rs 3-lakh-crore mark in the current fiscal.
“Mapping of procurement potential is an important exercise being monitored at the highest level of the government,” a top government official has told News18.
The GeM is a signature project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
WHAT MINISTRIES MUST DO?
The government is seeking data from all ministries regarding actual procurement in the FY 2022-23 and projected procurement for FY 2023-24 — these consolidated figures are required to be uploaded in the dashboard created in the GeM.
“As the mandate is to strive to achieve 100% procurement through the GeM, there shouldn’t be any planned procurement outside it. However, if there is any clearly foreseeable case of procurement to be made outside the GeM, the details along with reasons or justification shall be given in a format,” the top official said, citing recent orders.
The government is seeking break-up of procurements made through the GeM, outside the GeM and kinds of procurements which are “non-GeMable” such as bids allowing payments in foreign currency, which are currently not possible through the GeM. The exercise is expected to result in a boom in GeM-enabled procurements, as the projected procurement calendar will be furnished. According to government estimates, the minimum savings on the GeM are so far about 10%, which translates into Rs 40,000 crore worth of public money, since the inception in 2016.
GEM’S GROWTH SO FAR
In the financial year 2022-2023, procurement of goods and services from the GeM crossed the Rs 2-lakh-crore mark. After the GeM portal was launched in 2016, business worth around Rs 400 crore was done, and in the second year, the GeM did business of around Rs 5,800 crore. The business through the GeM has grown from around Rs 35,000 crore two years ago and tripled in 2021-22 to Rs 1.06 lakh crore.
Growing to Rs 2 lakh crore in five years shows this experiment of the PM has been successful, Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier said.
Goyal in April said the GeM, as a digital tool in public and of national interest, is a symbol of the speed with which PM Modi has taken the country forward through modern technology.
“The Prime Minister desires that the government departments should run at the highest levels of integrity and transparency, with participation of people from the remotest corners of the country and enable women entrepreneurs, startups and the MSME sector to participate in a fair and equitable manner in government procurements,” Goyal had said.
As on March 31, 2023, the GeM recorded Rs 2 lakh crore of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in FY 2022-23. Cumulatively, the GeM has surpassed the Rs 3.9-lakh-crore GMV since inception till March 31, 2023.
The total number of transactions on GeM has also crossed 1.47 crore.
The GeM is catering to the diverse procurement needs of over 67,000 government buyer organisations. The portal features over 11,700 product categories with more than 32 lakh listed products, as well as over 280 service categories with more than 2.8 lakh service offerings.
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