Government Emarketplace To Register Transactions Worth $7.8 Bn In 2018

The government emarketplace (a.k.a GeM) might touch $7.8 Bn (INR 50,000 Cr) worth transactions in 2018.

During the recent Vendors Meet in Ahmedabad,  HR Sharma, additional CEO of GeM shared that between August 2016 to March 2017, GeM has clocked in transactions worth $93.6 Mn – $109.2 Mn (INR 600 Cr – INR 700 Cr).

As claimed in media reports, more than 300 vendors on GeM are from Gujarat.

Sharma further said that in the upcoming years, the government emarketplace tends to reach transactions worth $31.2 Bn (INR 2 Lakh Cr).

Since April 2017 the number of transactions has reached $636 Mn (INR 4,080 Cr), out of which January recorded a major boost of $156 Mn (INR 1000 Cr).

Government Emarketplace: Raking In A Slow But Steady Growth

In August 2016, the Indian government launched an emarketplace for online purchase of goods and services by Central and State Government ministries and departments.

The emarketplace was developed by the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D) with technical support of NeGD (MeitY).

In April 2017, the Union Cabinet passed orders to wind up the government procurement department and register GeM as a Section 8 company.

In July 2017, Intellect Arena and Infibeam won the contract to manage, upgrade and maintain the GeM platform. Intellect procures goods while Infibeam manages the ecommerce services of the GeM. Furthermore, Tata Communications offers cloud services to GeM.

The government emarketplace currently shows 16,523 buyer organisations, 73,490 sellers, and 453425 products. So far, 17 states including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Telangana, Puducherry and Arunachal Pradesh, have signed MoU’s with the Centre for on-boarding on the government emarketplace.

The government has claimed that the average prices on GeM are lower by at least 15%-20% and, in some cases, even up to 56%.

GeM is also in charge of demand aggregation for items that are to be procured by various Central/State Government Departments, which is estimated to result in annual savings to the tune of $6.2 Bn (INR 40,000 Cr) per annum.

Recently, under GeM 3.0, the emarketplace also underwent a major digital overhaul to accommodate better and superior technology from the previous version.

During his Union Budget 2018 speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that the Central Public Procurement Platform will provide a single point access to all information on procurement.

With GeM 3.0 already working out and increasing number of transactions on the government emarketplace, it is to be seen how the government plans ahead to clock in more buyers, sellers and revenue on the platform.

(The development was reported by ET)