Govt e Marketplace gets orders of Rs 2 lakh crore in 2022-23
Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Apr 1: Seeking participation of more manufacturers and suppliers, Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal today expressed his reservations over any purchase preference for the locals on Government e Marketplace (GeM).
“Though provision is there for region like Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh or North Eastern States, which are very far off and extremely at distance, if they (Government departments) want to keep any purchase preference for locals or something like that because of very peculiar situation, but we will certainly not recommend this in normal course,” he said in response to a query while addressing a press conference at Mumbai on the landmark achievement of GeM crossing Rs 2 lakh crore procurement of goods and services in the financial year 2022-23.
Pertinent to mention that Government of Jammu and Kashmir allows its departments to use local filters upto a limit for bidding process on GeM for ensuring participation of local manufacturers in the procurement process.
The Union Minister claimed that purchase preference for local suppliers give an opportunity to the buyers to start gaming in the system and irregularities to come in.
“Ideally we allow that (purchase preference) very sparingly because ultimately we would like the Government to procure at the most competitive prices at right value on the platform where everybody can get a chance to participate,’ he said.
The Minister said that the Prime Minister desires that the Government departments run at the highest levels of integrity and transparency, with participation of people from the remotest corners of the country and enabling women entrepreneurs, startups and the MSME sector to participate in a fair and equitable manner in Government procurements.
“I am confident that GeM will grow faster, the future is very bright. I would like to appeal to more and more vendors to join GeM so that they too get a chance to participate in the Government procurement process,” he added.
The Minister informed that after the GeM portal was launched in 2017, business worth about Rs 400 crore was done, and in the second year, GeM did business of about Rs 5800 crore. The business through GeM has grown from around Rs 35000 crore two years ago and tripled last year to Rs 1 lakh 6 thousand crores, he said and added that growing to Rs 2 lakh crores in 5 years shows that this experiment of the Prime Minister has been successful.
The Minister also mentioned that India has crossed total exports of 750 billion dollars for the financial year 2022-23 and the final figure is expected to cross 765 billion dollars.
Chief Executive Officer of GeM, P K Singh, who was accompanying the Minister in the press conference, spoke about the vision and journey ahead for GeM. He informed that as on 31st March 2023, GeM has recorded a staggering Rs 2 lakh crore of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in FY 2022-23. Cumulatively, GeM has surpassed the Rs 3.9 lakh crore GMV since inception. The total number of transactions on GeM has also crossed 1.47 crore.
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. Based on various studies, the minimum savings on the platform are about 10 percent, which translates into a savings of Rs 40,000 crore worth of public money.
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