21-Dec-2022: Roll-out of GeM services through CSC and India Post

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public  Distribution Shri Piyush Goyal today said that the roll-out of GeM services through last-mile CSC-VLEs (Village level entrepreneurs) and PO-CSC operators ( Post Offices) will spur local procurement  and further the aim of Atmanirbhar Bharat.  He said this after launching the Government e Marketplace (GeM) Seller “Samvaad  Booklet” and flagging off the roll-out of GeM services through Common Service Center e-Governance  Services India Ltd. (CSC-SPV), and India Post, Department of Post, for last-mile buyers, sellers and service providers in public procurement, at a function held today at Vanijya  Bhawan in New Delhi. 

Shri Goyal said GeM has facilitated over 1 Crore orders  and highlighted that over 55% of these orders are through MSMEs and added that as stated by the Prime Minister, MSMEs are the backbone of every large company and entire entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

The Minister said Improvement of GeM Portal is an ongoing and evolving process. Efforts are on to add new features and functionalities. He called for continued engagement with the Sellers and buyers, and urged them to share their experiences and inputs with the Government on further improving the GeM portal to usher into a honest, efficient procurement process. He also urged Sellers to set ambitious targets.

Shri Goyal complimented all sellers and service providers on GeM for their unbound enthusiasm and participation on the portal and their efforts to usher a world class public procurement platform for all Government buyers, sellers and service-providers in the  country through the GeM portal. 

The Minister said GeM has transformed thousands of lives and  opened a plethora of opportunities for the sellers. He said GeM is transparent, efficient and is perfectly in line with Five Prans as articulated by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi that focuses on making India a developed nation by 2047.

In September 2022, GeM “Seller Samvaad” events were held in 26 cities across India in collaboration  with the Press Information Bureau (PIB) to facilitate an informal interaction of GeM sellers and service providers with members of regional and local media to document their journey in public  procurement. Testimonials from sellers and service providers based on their experience on the portal  were documented in print and digital media, and later collated and compiled in the form of a “Seller  Samvaad” booklet which was launched at the event today in the presence of 13 select sellers and service  providers.

Earlier in May 2022, GeM, CSC-SPV and India Post had inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the advocacy, outreach, mobilization and capacity-building of last-mile Govt buyers, sellers and  service providers in public procurement. With this tripartite MoU, 5.2 lakh+ Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE) under CSC-SPV and approx. 1.5  lakh+ India Post Office (PO-CSC) operators across India are being trained to assist last-mile Govt  buyers/ Cooperative Societies with buyer registration, and all sellers and service providers with seller  registration, product catalogue upload and management, order acceptance, fulfilment and invoice  generation functionality on the GeM portal. 

27-Oct-2022: Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) crosses Rs 10,000 Crore Procurement Value on GeM

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) ,becomes the first Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) to achieve the major milestone of procurement value of Rs 10,000 (Ten Thousand) Crore through the Government-e-Marketplace (GeM) since inception.

SAIL has been at the forefront in partnering with GeM and has played an active role to create different functionalities to enhance the reach of the GeM portal.

From a small beginning of Rs. 2.7 Crore in FY'18-19, SAIL has already crossed the total value of Rs. 10,000 Crore in this year. Incidentally, SAIL was the largest CPSE procurer on GeM in the previous Financial Year with a value of Rs. 4,614 Crore. In the current fiscal, SAIL has already surpassed the achievement of previous year with procurement of over Rs. 5,250 Crore till date and is committed to substantially increase the volumes on GeM.

21-Sep-2022: GeM Seller Samvad held in Panaji, Goa

“After registering on the GeM portal, our agency is getting tremendous response. My company deals with service. We provide manpower through GeM. Paperless system provides seamless work. After registering on GeM, my business has grown from 2 lakh 80 thousand to 2 crores”. Says Jyoti Rao Rerapalli of Jyoti Enterprises while sharing her experiences on GeM portal at GeM Seller Samvad held at Panaji, Goa today.

Ashish Ranjan of Nidhi Enterprises, dealing in the Defence sector also has a similar experience. He says,  “We have registered on GeM portal in 2019. Benefits of GeM Portal are that we get pan India orders, this has benefited a lot to the business. Transparency increases when the number grows for bidding”.

Government e-Marketplace vendors from Goa shared their experiences at the GeM Seller Samvad held in Panaji today. The event provided an opportunity to the GeM sellers of the state to get acquainted with new GeM features and functionalities that further make it conducive for them to operate on the portal.

Since inception, GeM has facilitated over 1 crore transactions valued at over 3.02 lakh crore. From Goa, 9417 vendors have  registered themselves on the platform, generating an order value of 231.05 Crore since the platform's inception.   Addressing the gathering, Additional Secretary (Finance), Government of Goa and State Nodal Officer for GeM, Vikas Gaunekar said there is a total transparency in the process. He stated that the platform has a very prompt payment system and the government is trying to give a bigger push. The secretary also took the opportunity to appeal to all GST registered traders in Goa to register on the GeM portal. GeM portal is a win-win situation for vendors as well as government, added Gaunekar.

Nishant Deengawal, Director  - States and Union Territories (GeM) made a detailed presentation on GeM portal. Kenneth Alphonso, State Business Facilitator for GeM was also present at the media interaction, which was moderated by Gautam S Kumar, Deputy Director, Press Information Bureau.

About Government e Marketplace (GeM):

Government e Marketplace (GeM), the National Public Procurement Portal of the country is an end-to-end online Marketplace for the procurement of goods and services. It was launched on August 9, 2016, as part of the vision of the Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for redefining public procurement. GeM has been able to bring about radical changes in the way procurement was done by Government buyers and public sector undertakings. GeM is contactless, paperless, and cashless and stands on three pillars: efficiency, transparency, and inclusivity.

It is noteworthy that GeM has surpassed the milestone of INR 1 Lakh Crore of procurement value, in a single fiscal year in FY 21-22. Since its inception, GeM has facilitated over 1 Crore transactions valued at over INR 3.02 Lakh Crore. This has only been possible with the support of all stakeholders including buyers and sellers across the country.

The buyer base of GeM comprises all Central and State Government departments, cooperative societies and public sector undertakings. The heterogeneous nature of GeM’s seller base clearly reflects on the founding pillar of ‘inclusivity’. Starting from the big companies and conglomerates, the seller base includes women entrepreneurs, Self Help Groups and MSME sellers from all over the country. Moreover, special provisions have also been created on the GeM portal to ensure a seamless on-boarding experience for MSMEs and SHGs. It is worth mentioning that 62 thousand registered government buyers and 50.90 lakh sellers and service providers speak for the size and scale of GeM operations.

Since its inception, GeM has been steadily growing with new product and service categories being added constantly. Currently, there are about 300 service categories and over 10000+ product categories available on GeM. These categories feature around 44 lakhs catalogues of product and service offerings. Further, GeM is an evolving platform and relentlessly works towards adding new features and functionalities to the portal.

9-Aug-2022: The Union Minister for Home & Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah e-launched the onboarding of cooperatives on the Government e Marketplace (GeM) portal in New Delhi today

The Union Home and Cooperation Minister, Shri Amit Shah launched the onboarding of cooperatives on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal, today in New Delhi. The program organized by the Ministry of Cooperation, Government of India, the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) and GeM was also attended by Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State for Cooperation and North East Region Development Shri B.L. Verma and the NCUI President Shri Dilip Sanghani and many other dignitaries.

In his address, Shri Amit Shah said that today is a very important day in Indian history. In 1942, on August 9, Gandhiji began the Quit India Movement against British Rule and today another important work is being done task is taking place on the occasion of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav on August 9, in which access to GeM has been given to cooperative societies in the country.  He said there is immense potential in the cooperative sector and the GeM portal will be a very useful platform for the expansion of this sector. The Union Minister of Cooperation said most of units of the government buy through GeM, so cooperatives should also start preparing for registration for supply on GeM to increase their market. He also appealed to the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) to expand marketing of cooperatives and for this there can be no better way than the GeM.

The Cooperation Minister said this sector has been neglected since Independence, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi is accelerating its expansion with historic reforms and modernization. Under the leadership of Shri Modi, the Ministry of Cooperation has taken a number of measures for expansion and in the last year the Ministry has been continuously working on 25 to 30 initiatives.

The government has to expand cooperatives but there is no database, therefore the ministry is also creating a national level database of different categories of cooperatives. Arrangements for training will also be made available. Shri Shah said an export house is also being registered the work for which will be completed by December. It will provide a platform for export from cooperatives across the country. He said radical changes are also being made in the Multistate Cooperative Act and the government led by Shri Narendra Modi has also decided to computerize all PACS.

 Amit Shah said population size is a great advantage in an economy, because ultimately the population is also the market. Till 2014, India’s population was 130 crore, but the market was only 60 crore, as 70 crore people did not have purchasing capacity. 60 crore people worried about their next meal and other basic needs and generations went through the same ordeal. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi opened bank accounts, provided gas cylinders, toilets, electricity, pure drinking water and food grains free of cost to the poor and as a result awakened the aspirations of these 60 crore people by fulfilling their basic needs and cooperatives have the potential to fulfil all these aspirations. Today after fulfilling their primary needs, these people have ambitions to move ahead in life by earning more money and through cooperatives they can fulfil these ambitions. Shri Amit Shah said if these 60 crore people have just Rs. 5,000, they can run the biggest of cooperatives. Giving the example of Amul, Shri Shah said today this cooperative has crossed a turnover of Rs.60,000crore and20 lakh women members are not only running the cooperative, but have also been  making profits for many years.

The Union Cooperation Minister said the cooperative model is a model in which even with limited capital people can come together and undertake large tasks easily. He said earlier the cooperative model did not have much potential, but Shri Narendra Modi has awakened the aspirations of 60 crore people. He said if a system does not change itself with the times, then it becomes out dated, and therefore it is necessary to improve the cooperative system for the expansion of the sector. India’s cooperative system is 115 years old, the laws are also very old, though small changes have taken place from time to time, radical changes and modernization according to the times have not taken place.

Shri Shah said now the cooperative sector cannot be given second class treatment, however there is a need to bring about change and to move in the direction of bringing transparency and for cooperatives to prepare themselves for change. The GeM portal will be very useful in bringing in transparency in the cooperative sector and when there is transparency, the trust of farmers and milk producers will also increase on the committees and their members. He said that by bringing the GeM portal, Shri Narendra Modi has brought in transparency in government procurement. This is a new system, and therefore there may be some initial administrative problems, but no one should doubt the intention of bringing in this new system. Shri Shah said it is also very important to bring transparency in three areas within cooperatives - elections, recruitment and purchase. There can be no better medium than the GeM to bring transparency in procurement. The Union Minister of Cooperation said he is confident that the world will recognize this successful model of transparent government procurement in the next five5 years.

The Union Minister of Cooperation said he is very optimistic about the future of GeM's journey under the leadership of Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal. He said of the589 of the committees to be added have a turnover of about Rs.100croreare of the state government and till date 289 of them have joined, as well as 45 of the 54 multistate cooperatives have also joined, which is a huge achievement. Also more than 10,000 products and more than 288 services have been listed. Till now business worth Rs. 2.78 lakh thousand crore has also been completed which is a huge achievement of the GeM. Shri Shah said this day is important for the Nation as the Quit India movement began on August 9 and six years ago on August 9 the GeM was also launched and today onboarding of cooperatives has been initiated on this day. Shri Amit Shah congratulated those associated with cooperatives, the entire team of the GeM and eight lakh cooperative societies and especially Shri Piyush Goyal.

8-Aug-2022: Union Home and Cooperation Minister, Shri Amit Shah to e-launch onboarding of cooperatives on Government e Marketplace (GeM) portal

The Union Home and Cooperation Minister, Shri Amit Shah will e-launch the onboarding of cooperatives on the GeM portal tomorrow in New Delhi.  The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal and President of the National Cooperative Union of India  (NCUI), Shri Dileep Sanghani will also be  present at this programme organised by the Ministry of Cooperation (Govt. of India), the NCUI and GeM. With this e-launch, all eligible cooperatives will be able to start placing orders on the GeM portal. Recently, the Ministry of Cooperation in its advisory had made the NCUI the nodal agency to facilitate onboarding of cooperatives, coordinating with GeM authorities and handholding the cooperatives in the process of on-boarding.

NCUI has compiled a list of cooperatives with turnover/deposits of Rs. 100 crore and forwarded this information to GeM for starting the onboarding process. 589 cooperatives have been shortlisted as eligible for onboarding. NCUI has written to all cooperative federations and conducted virtual meets of national and state federations and of eligible cooperatives sector-wise to apprise them about the benefits of the GeM portal. A joint task force of NCUI and GeM officials has been  formed to call/mail individual cooperatives to urge them for onboarding and handhold for registration. A Helpdesk of the GeM technical team has been established at NCUI to help cooperatives with the entire process.

GeM has been set up as the National procurement portal to provide an end-to-end online marketplace for Central and State Govt depts./ Ministries, PSUs, etc. for common-use goods and services in a transparent and efficient manner. So far GeM was not enabled for registration of cooperative societies as buyers on the platform. The Union Cabinet under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has approved on June 1st  to expand the mandate for GeM to allow cooperatives to procure goods and services through GeM. Cooperatives will not only get competitive prices through an open and transparent process, but can also procure from about 45 lakh authenticated sellers/service providers available across the country on a single platform. Besides, this will lead to saving of time and reduction of administrative costs for cooperatives.

The onboarding of cooperative societies/banks will be done in a phased manner. In the first phase, cooperative societies/banks with turnover/deposits of more than Rs. 100 crore as per the latest audited financial statement and with A Grade auditing have been  taken up for onboarding.   

29-Jul-2022: GeM achieves total procurement value of ₹ 2,70,384 Crore

GeM has achieved total procurement value of ₹2,70,384 Crore (as on 25 July 2022), since its inception. The Government of India set up the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) in 2016 as an e-marketplace to revolutionize public procurement in India by leveraging technology. Union Cabinet in its meeting held on 01.06.2022 has given its approval for expanding the mandate of GeM to allow procurement by Cooperatives as buyers on GeM.

Previously, public procurement in India was characterized by inefficient, opaque, and time consuming manual processes conducted offline, complicated by a fragmented and complex policy landscape.

GeM’s approach is underlined by commitment to three pillars of transparency, efficiency and inclusiveness elaborated as under:

1. Transparency: GeM is an open marketplace wherein it promotes open access to information in a  transparent manner. Relevant information on Sellers, Goods and Services is easy to find and readily available for users. GeM provides database insights to support its users in decision-making process.
2. Inclusiveness: GeM’s focus on inclusiveness is multifaceted, involving not only making the platform usable and trusted by every type of seller but also conducting active outreach to onboard marginalized and underserved seller segments including Small and Medium Enterprises, Women Entrepreneurs, Startups and Artisans.
3. Efficiency:  In view of being an end to end online and integrated portal, GeM brings efficiency in Public Procurement by removing manual interventions at various stages of Public Procurement.

Government has amended the General Financial Rules 2017 (GFR) and made a provision under Rule 149 for making it mandatory to procure Goods and Services through GeM.

22-Jul-2022: Government sets a target of 75% procurement by 15th August and 100% by the end of current financial year for procurement through GeM

On the directions of Prime Minister, a review meeting of GeM (Government E-Marketplace) was held under the chairmanship of Commerce and Industry Minister Sh. Piyush Goyal today. Buyers from over 50 Central Govt. Ministries and 50 CPSEs were invited for getting firsthand feedback of the Buyers.

Shri Goyal lauded the efforts being made by various Buyer organizations in increasing their procurements through GeM and emphasized that Hon’ble Prime Minister has set a target of 75% procurement to be made through GeM by 15th of August and 100% procurement to be made through GeM by the end of the current financial year.

The minister said that there was a need to keep a strict vigil on GeM procurement data and identify any deviant behaviours using Advanced Analytics and AI ML based tools so that immediate and strict action could be taken against any such deviant behaviours.

The Minister emphasized on the need to change in the perception that public procurement is a source of corruption. He said that GeM has brought about a sea change in the way public procurement is perceived by public at large. He expressed the hope that GeM will continue its engagement with all stakeholders and going forward will also focus on ease of doing procurement. He desired that GeM should be benchmarked against best in the class rather than being benchmarked against other Government systems.

Shri Goyal also expressed the hope that the kind of data being generated in GeM will certainly help government in improving transparency and efficiency in public procurement. The Minister said that aggregation of demand because of procurement happening through a single portal will help in reducing the cost of procurement also for Govt. Buyers. With collective wisdom and collective efforts of all stakeholders, GeM can well become the largest marketplace for public procurement in the world, he added.

During the review meeting, Buyers were briefed about the new features and functionalities deployed on GeM in last one year and also about planned developments in near future. Queries of the Buyers were discussed and resolved or taken note of for further improvement on the portal. Large number of buyers appreciated efforts being taken by GeM to make procurement process simpler and transparent.

GeM has made significant strides since its inception. Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in last 4 years has been as under:

GeM has about 61,440 Government Buyer Organizations and about 47.99 Lakh Sellers & Service Providers with a rich listing of over 41.44 lakh Product Offerings and 1.9 lakh Service offerings. All states (except Sikkim) have already signed MoUs with GeM. As many as 239 CPSUs are also registered on GeM and making significant procurement through GeM Portal.

GeM has taken a host of steps to onboard products of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), tribal communities, craftsmen, weavers, and MSMEs with a view to making the platform more inclusive. 57% of the total business on GeM has come through the MSE units and over 6% has been contributed by women entrepreneurs. GeM is also integrating with Panchayati Raj Institutions to allow online buying and selling by the Panchayats at the grassroot level. GeM is also in an advanced stage of integration with IndiaPost for extending logistics services at the grassroot level. GeM SAHAY is another initiative of GeM to facilitate small sellers to avail credit financing from various integrated lenders against the Orders received on GeM.

Government e Marketplace (GeM) is an online platform for public procurement in India which was envisaged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister. The vision for GeM expounded by the Hon’ble Prime Minister was to drive the three pillars of inclusivity, efficiency with attendant cost savings and transparency along with more and more usability. The initiative was launched on August 9, 2016 by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, with an objective to create an open and transparent procurement platform for government buyers. The portal has transformed public procurement in India by driving its three pillars viz. inclusivity, transparency, and efficiency.

4-Jun-2022: New Initiatives by GeM to promote sustainable public procurement of products and services

Government eMarketplace [GeM] is promoting sustainable public procurement [SPP] of products and services in association with the United Nations Environment Program [UNEP]. Since the launch of Green Room Air Conditioners [RAC] in June 2021, GeM has taken a series of path-breaking steps to roll out new features and functionalities on the portal to promote the adoption of environmentally sustainable products and services. 

Speaking on World Environment Day, Shri PK Singh, CEO GeM said that GeM is prioritizing the listing and availability of environmentally sustainable products and services by targeting the largest selling products and services on the portal, and products and services based on their potential for impact on the environment. Further, GeM has proactively created and listed new product and service categories, and implemented new functionalities, namely; forward auction for safe disposal of obsolete machinery, and buyback option for disposal of obsolete assets and procurement of new products.

Shri Atul Bagai, UNEP Country Head, highlighted that public procurement represents a sizable proportion of Government’s spending. By promoting SPP practices, governments have the opportunity to create high-volume and long-term demand of sustainable products and services. Shri Bagai reinforced UNEP’s support and commitment for achieving this objective.

SPP of Products on GeM:

On 05th June 2021, Green RACs were launched on GeM. The purchase of Green RACs is  on a voluntary basis. and the faster adoption of such products by government buyers will pave the way for realizing India’s Nationally Determined Contributions [NDC] and its commitment towards Sustainable Development Goal [SDG] # 12 “Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns” with special emphasis on target 12.7 – aims to “Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities.” In 2021-22, government buyers procured 176 green RACs worth INR 3.65 Crore.

Writing and printing paper [Maplitho], an uncoated paper used to make textbooks, notebooks, from hardwood pulp) is a popular product category on GeM. Approx. 90% of the total procurement of writing and printing paper is for Eco-mark paper which is a standard applicable for manufacturer producing paper from agro-based and recycled fibre-based raw material.

GeM has created marketplace filters to help government buyers identify solar-powered renewable products such as inverters, streetlights, torch lights, study lamps, water heating systems, and battery-powered e-rickshaws for passengers.

Daily use products for pollution tracking, monitoring and rehabilitation, refuse disposal and treatment of hazardous and non-hazardous waste including sewage treatment are already listed and available for procurement on the portal.

GeM has introduced “The Green Gold Collection”, a dedicated online market store to showcase a range of bamboo accessories for potential use in the construction sector and exquisitely handcrafted bamboo handicrafts, daily-utility products/ disposals for government buyers. Bamboo producers will be able to list their products under different product categories.

SPP of Services on GeM:

Presently, 250+service categories are live on GeM.. Notable services with a sustainable procurement component include:

• Lease hiring of electric vehicles [short and long-term] for senior officers including operations and maintenance,
• Event and monthly-based hiring of air conditioners and desert coolers including supply, installation and maintenance for required number of days or contract period,
• Energy efficiency services namely, energy conservation and energy audit services and hiring of consultant for energy efficiency services/ projects,
• Waste Management services, namely; biomedical waste management services, collection and disposal of waste management services, e-waste management, garbage collection and disposal, and municipal sewage waste,
• Water Conservation, including rejuvenation of water bodies, and testing of water quality,
• Annual maintenance contracts [AMC] for solar plant, wind, hydro and bio plants, and
• Water audit and afforestation services, namely; plantation and tree translocation services, to name a few.
• Housekeeping service with eco-friendly chemical cleanliness and conservancy of office premises, hospitals and guest houses etc.
• Operation and Management of Electric Buses is available on GeM where buyers can hire electric buses with its operation and maintenance.
• GeM is working towards the launch of a new service “Green Transition Service” on the GeM portal for buyers who seek a structured framework to achieve carbon neutrality and aim for being net zero Carbon emissions in their operations. Service components will include; estimation and preparation of GHG emissions inventory, developing methodology for accounting of GHG emissions, preparation of detailed project reports on calculation of carbon footprint, milestones, implementation and monitoring plan for the assessment year, leading to a comprehensive roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions.

New Functionalities to promote SPP

New features/ functionalities like “forward auction” provides opportunities for government buyers/ auctioneers to auction on the GeM portal and potential bidders can participate in these bids to purchase the fully-depreciated and or obsolete assets using the auction mode. The forward auction facility is available for a wide range of product categories including e-waste of electronic and electrical equipment, land and buildings (industrial, commercial and residential), machinery (electric, industrial and non-electrical), scrap/ disposal of lube/ waste oil, metallic, non-metallic, usable and scrap vehicles and other items of monetary value for reuse.

The “buyback option” presently available in 37+ product categories permits sellers to quote the price of new goods along with the price offered for old goods as buy back. Government buyers can now exercise this option at the time of creating bids on GeM to dispose their obsolete assets and procure new products.

Several PSUs, government ministries, state departments and municipal corporations have started considering environmental and energy efficiency criteria in their procurement decisions. Procurement of environmentally friendly products and services has a cascading effect through reduction in waste-generation, lower water consumption, efficient energy consumption and reduced carbon emissions, thereby ensuring fair and sustainable economic growth and delivery of social benefits. GeM will collaborate with UNEP and fellow partners in supporting, promoting and synergizing the Sustainable Public Procurement [SPP] initiative of the Government of India.

1-Jun-2022: Government e Marketplace - Special Purpose Vehicle (GeM - SPV)

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for expanding the mandate of GeM to allow procurement by Cooperatives as buyers on GeM.

The Government e Marketplace (GeM) was launched on August 9, 2016 by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India to create an open and transparent procurement platform for Government buyers. A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) by the name of Government e- Marketplace (GeM SPV) was set up as the National Public Procurement Portal on 17th May, 2017 in pursuance of the approval, of the Union Cabinet accorded on 12th April, 2017. At present, the platform is open for procurement by all government buyers: central and state ministries, departments, public sector enterprises, autonomous institutions, local bodies, etc. As per existing mandate, GeM is not available for use by private sector buyers. Suppliers (sellers) can be from across all segments: government or private.

No. of beneficiaries: More than 8.54 lakh registered cooperatives and their 27 Crore members would be benefitted with this initiative. GeM portal is open for all the buyers and sellers across the country.

Details:

1. GeM is already adequately developed as a one stop portal to facilitate online procurement of common use Goods and Services. It is transparent, efficient, has economy of scale and is speedy in procurement. Cooperative Societies will now be allowed to procure goods and services from GeM.
2. Allowing Cooperative Societies to register on GeM as Buyers would help Cooperatives in getting competitive prices through an. open and, transparent process,
3. The validated list of cooperatives to be onboarded on GeM - for pilot as well as subsequent scale up - will be decided by Ministry of Cooperation in consultation with GeM SPV. This will ensure that technical capacity and logistics requirement of the GeM system are taken into account while deciding the pace of on boarding of Cooperative as buyers on GeM.
4. GeM will provide a dedicated onboarding process for cooperatives, provide the technical infrastructure to support additional users on existing portal, as well as provide assistance to cooperatives for onboarding and transaction journeys, via available contact centers, in-field training and other support services.
5. Ministry of Cooperation would issue necessary advisories to encourage the Cooperative Societies to make use of the GeM platform for procurement of goods and services in order to benefit from increased transparency, efficiency and competitive prices.
6. To protect interests of the broader seller community on GeM and ensure timely payments, the modalities of payment systems shall be decided by GeM in consultation with the Ministry of Cooperation.

Implementation strategy and targets: GeM will initiate suitable actions, which would inter alia include creation of necessary features and functionalities on GeM portal, upgradation of infrastructure, strengthening of the helpdesk and training ecosystem, and onboarding of cooperatives. The overall pace and mechanism of roll-out would be decided by Ministry of Cooperation. The milestones and target dates will be aligned mutually between Ministry of Cooperation and GeM (Ministry of Commerce and Industry).

Impact including employment generation potential: The Ministry of Cooperation wanted the Cooperative Societies to be allowed to procure goods and services from GeM as it is already adequately developed as a one stop portal to facilitate online procurement of common use Goods and Services. It is transparent, efficient, has economy of scale and is speedy in procurement. In the above context, allowing Cooperative Societies to register on GeM as Buyers of Goods & Services required by them would help Cooperatives in getting competitive prices through an open and transparent process. Moreover, since the societies have more than 27 Crore members, procurement through GeM would not only economically benefit the common man, but it would also enhance the credibility of the cooperatives.

GeM has also developed a rich understanding of running an advanced procurement portal including the functional needs, managing the technical infrastructure, and dealing with multiple stakeholders involved. It is felt that the rich experience gained in creating the procurement ecosystem in the country can be significantly utilized to produce efficiencies and transparency in procurement processes for cooperatives also. This is also expected to enhance overall “Ease of Doing Business" for cooperatives, while providing a larger Buyer base to the GeM registered sellers also.

Expenditure involved: While the GeM SPV will continue to leverage the existing platform and organization for supporting the proposed expanded mandate, it may need some investments in additional technology infrastructure, and additional training and support resources. To cover for these incremental costs, GeM may charge an appropriate transaction fee from cooperatives, to be decided in mutual consultation with the Ministry of Cooperation. Such charges shall not be more than the charges which GeM would charge to other Government buyers. This will be planned to ensure self-sustainability of operations for GeM, and hence no major financial implication is expected for government.

Background: The GeM SPV has made significant strides since its inception. The Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) has grown with CAGR of over 84.5% from FY 2018-19 to FY 2021-22. The portal has delivered 178% growth in GMV in the FY 2021-22 and has crossed INR 1 lakh Crore in FY 2021-22 alone, which is higher than the cumulative GMV till FY 2020-21.

Each of the three pillars of GeM viz inclusion, transparency and efficiency have seen significant progress. The contribution by MSMEs to the cumulative transaction value is about 58%. Different independent studies, including those by the World Bank and National Economic Survey 2021, indicated substantial savings due to GeM’s ability to pool in more participation and provide cost effective options.

The cooperative movement in India has grown significantly, playing an important role in addressing the developmental needs of underprivileged classes in India, especially in agricultural, banking and housing sectors. There are currently 8.54 lakh registered cooperatives.  These cooperatives collectively procure and sell in large quantities. Presently, the registration of cooperatives as "buyers" was not covered within the existing mandate of GeM.

19-May-2022: GeM and SEWA ink MoU to enable engagement of last-mile women-led enterprises as sellers and service providers on GeM

Government eMarketplace [GeM] and Self Employed Women’s Association [SEWA] inked a Memorandum of Understanding [MoU] for the advocacy, outreach, mobilization and capacity-building of last-mile women-led micro and small enterprises, women entrepreneurs, SHGs, Associations, Cooperatives, Collectives, Not-for-Profit Section 8 Companies, and various Voluntary Organizations [VO] as sellers and service providers in public procurement. The MoU was signed by Shri PK Singh, CEO, GeM, and Ms. Rehana Riyawala, Vice-President, SEWA in New Delhi on 19th May 2022.

GeM will train SEWA members to assist and enable women-led micro and small enterprises, women entrepreneurs, SHGs among others, with GeM processes related to seller registration and on-boarding on the platform, upload/ update of product/ service catalogues, acceptance of orders, participation in bids floated by Govt buyers, fulfilment of orders and invoice generation to receive payments directly into their bank accounts through the unified online national public procurement platform.

Vernacular language-based training curriculum in print and digital media for women entrepreneurs and SHGs based on the requirement of the participants will being developed by GeM in consultation with SEWA. Training sessions will be conducted through in-person and virtual training modes for SEWA members in district and block-level, who in turn will train last-mile women entrepreneurs and SHGs with various buyer and seller functionalities on the GeM portal.

GeM has sought to address the twin challenges of “access to markets” through GeM Outlet Stores and “access to finance” through GeM Sahay application for such under-served seller groups. Marketplace filters and icons on product display page for Women MSE entrepreneurs have been enabled on the portal to help government buyers meet the 3 percent [%] procurement target set aside for women-led MSEs in accordance with the Public Procurement Policy for MSEs [PPP-MSE] for promotion of women-led micro, small enterprises. Further, GeM has created 200+ handicraft, handloom and office accessories product categories, along with 8 dedicated outlet stores to showcase and promote products made by women entrepreneurs from the informal sector. Creation of “Stitching and tailoring”, “canteen and catering”, “housekeeping” service categories tailored to generate employment and business opportunities for women in urban and rural areas are also available on the portal.

Social inclusion being one of its core values, Government e Marketplace [GeM] is focused on increasing participation from last-mile women-led micro and small enterprises, women entrepreneurs, and SHGs who face challenges in accessing government markets. Last-mile under-served seller groups in rural areas, namely; women-led micro and small enterprises, women entrepreneurs, SHGs and others such as khadi and tribal entrepreneurs, farmer producer organizations [FPO], Startups, artisans and weavers, Divyangjan and Hunar-Haat craftsmen, bamboo producers, and allied stakeholders’ such as Corporates, Private Companies Colleges, Scientific and Technical Research Institutions, and Universities, among others in public procurement will benefit from this MoU.

Speaking at the ceremony, Shri PK Singh, CEO, GeM mentioned that “inclusion is a core value at GeM, and this partnership will leverage the wide network of women entrepreneurs through SEWA to ensure the inclusion and participation of last-mile women entrepreneurs and women SHGs on GeM”. Presently, 1.31 lakh+ women MSE entrepreneurs are registered on the GeM portal and they have fulfilled approx. 5.7 lakh+ orders worth INR 10,752 Crore in gross merchandise value.

Smt. Rehana Riyawala, Vice-President, SEWA said that “the signing of MoU with GeM will usher access to an untapped market in public procurement for millions of women entrepreneurs from the informal sector”. Engagement of last-mile women-led micro and small enterprises, SHGs among others with Local Bodies, Panchayati Raj institutions located in block and district-level will spur hyper-local procurement of goods and services leading to employment- generation and wealth-creation in rural India.

The MoU will align the untapped entrepreneurial energy of last-mile producers and service-providers in rural India with local government buyers. Social and economic inclusion of last-mile women-led micro and small enterprises, women entrepreneurs, and SHGs from the informal sector in public procurement will lead to integration of local value-chains through “Vocal for Local” and “Make in India” initiatives of the Government, thereby furthering the aim of ensuring a self-reliant “Atmanirbhar Bharat”.

About Us:

Government e Marketplace [GeM]: GeM is a Section 8 company setup under the administrative control of the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, for procurement of goods and services by Central Ministries, State Departments, PSEs and Autonomous Bodies.

Self-Employed Women’s Association [SEWA]: SEWA is the premier Women’s organization in India that aligns women organizations with Government programs, facilitating market linkages for informal women workers to develop their livelihoods and strengthening collective bargaining power of women workers by offering them new livelihood opportunities, amongst various other objectives.

24-Mar-2022: Government e-Market portal touches an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22

Government e Marketplace (GeM) has attained an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22. This represents a 160% growth compared to last FY. Addressing media on the occasion, Shri Prashant Kumar Singh, CEO, GeM said that since inception the cumulative Gross Merchandize Value (GMV) reached INR 1 Lakh crore over 4 and half years, on 23rd March 2021, whereas the GMV of GeM in the current Financial Year surpassed Rs. 1 lakh crore (Ts. 1 trillion) in less than a year. This represents a 160% growth compared to last FY. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi had tweeted about this accomplishment.

Shri Singh added that the portal had transformed public procurement in India by driving its three pillars viz. inclusion, usability and transparency and efficiency and cost saving. The number of orders has also surpassed 31.5 Lakh in the current financial year with a growth at the rate of 22%. In a short span of 5 years, GeM has become one of the biggest government e-procurement platforms in the world.

Referring to the share of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs), Shri Singh said that approximately Rs. 43,000 Crore worth procurement was done by CPSEs (~43% of total GMV) on GeM, showing an approximate growth of 508% as compared to last FY. He also asserted that States continued to be an important stakeholder with approx. 30% contribution to total GMV.

Highlighting the role played by GeM in ushering in inclusion in government procurement, Shri Singh said that GeM has taken a host of steps to onboard products of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), tribal communities, craftsmen, weavers, and MSMEs. 57% of the total business on GeM has come through the MSME units and over 6% has been contributed by female entrepreneurs. It may be noted that the number of women sellers and entrepreneurs on GeM has grown 6 times in a year.

It may be noted that procurement from MSEs is at 57% of the total GMV currently with a growth of 143% compared to last FY. There is a 15% increase in Buyer onboarding compared to last FY and there is a 187% increase in Seller onboarding compared to last FY. There is also a 44% increase in the number of Services compared to last FY with a 25% contribution in the total GMV (Rs. 25,000 Crore)

GeM is an online platform for public procurement in India which was envisaged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi ji. The initiative was launched on August 9, 2016 by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GoI, with an objective to create an open and transparent procurement platform for government buyers. Created in a record time of 5 months, GeM facilitates online procurement of common use Goods and Services.

According to an independent assessment made by the World Bank, average savings for buyers in Government e Marketplace portal is about 9.75% on the median price. Since inception GeM has shown impressive growth year on year with better prices, thus helping the state exchequer save substantial money. In an analysis in the Economic Survey 2021-22, cost comparison of various commodities on GeM with those of popular online platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart showed that GeM prices were 9.5% lower. 10 out of 22 commodities in the sample were cheaper on the GeM portal as compared to other platforms.

New features and initiatives launched in GeM Covid 19 Oxygen drive was carried out during the Covid crisis to onboard suppliers of compressed medical oxygen gas cylinders on GeM. Total 250 Covid-19 medical categories are available on GeM; over 4.73 Lakh orders were placed through the same since March 2020.

GeM is integrating with Panchayati Raj Institutions to allow online buying and selling by the Panchayats at the grassroot level. The pilot in Gurgaon district panchayats has been successfully completed. Gem is in an advanced stage of integration with IndiaPost for extending logistics services at the grassroot level.

GeM SAHAY is an initiative to facilitate small sellers to avail credit financing from various integrated Lenders for the Orders received on GeM Portal.The Forward auction module has been launched facilitating government Auctioneers to auction assets using multiple auction modes and monitor the complete selling life cycle of their assets.

GeM platform supports advanced analytics framework to identify anomalous behaviour and transactions, market intelligence, demand/price forecasting and procurement planning/monitoring. GeM now has integration with 24 CPSEs ERP systems for post order information exchange. In total over 3 Lakh orders worth Rs. 42,000 Crore were exchanged via the integration.

GeM has Implemented Natural Language Processing based search to understand the users’ intent thereby allowing the display of relevant and more accurate search results when they search for products or services on GeM.

GeM has enabled the Buyback mechanism through which the buyer will be able to float a bid to replace old products with new ones and get some additional discount/buyback on the old products. GeM has enabled schedule wise evaluation for BoQ bids. The Buyers can now publish and evaluate item-wise, group-wise, consignee-wise for the BoQ Bids.

To ensure that business growth is supported by the platform with reliability and performance, GeM has implemented various improvements like efficient caching, optimizing active storages, improving technology currency across the layers of programming languages to databases and implemented enhanced security measures. The Platform is supporting ~13,500 concurrent users with some DB loads reaching ~35K QPS (Queries per Second).

GeM has also engaged external security consultants for exhaustive audits and has implemented ~75 additional security directives. It is also going through an STQC certification audit planned to complete by March 2022.While load on the platform increased by 70%, the page response time has seen an improvement of 40%. On an average, the number of bids per day has also increased from 1,100 in April 2021 to 2,800 in March 2022. Corresponding seller participation per day has also increased to 15,000 from 10,000 in the same period.

GeM was adjudged as the winner in the "Best Use of Digital Technology" category at the CIPS Excellence in Procurement Awards 2021 held at London. GeM emerged the winner in this category after competing with some of the biggest and best names in procurement across the public and private sector globally, including GEP, Jaguar Land Rover, Royal Dutch Shell, VenDigital and Shell.

GeM was also shortlisted as a finalist in two additional categories as well, i.e. 'Public Procurement Project of the Year' and 'Best Initiative to Build a Diverse Supply Base' where it was in the august company of some path-breaking organizations with great initiatives.

3-Nov-2021: Stay alert against cartelization and collusion in Government e-Marketplace (GEM)

"Stay alert against cartelisation and collusion in GEM" said Shri Piyush Goyal, while reviewing the functioning of the Government e-Marketplace (GEM) today.

The Minister for Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Shri Piyush Goyal asked the officials to make GEM more affordable and further increase the volume of business.

The Minister asked for bringing more transparency in the system. He said that operations should be audited regularly to ensure that all technical and financial aspects of GeM stay strong all the time.

The Minister asked the officials to make GeM more user & commerce friendly so that ease of doing business can be further promoted. He also directed officials to significantly reduce and cap the transaction charges so that more traders are attracted to the GeM portal.

CIM asked the GEM team to use AI and further simplify the system. He said that as the volume of operations grow, AI would be needed to bring most appropriate buyers and sellers together for transactions. Use of AI would also act as a watch dog against business malpractices like collusion and cartelisation which often sneak in online business platforms. He cautioned GeM officials to keep a watch on such things. Shri Goyal said that the transparency of the system should be strengthened and no one should ever get a chance to raise doubts on the integrity of GeM platform.

The Minister was informed that the pilot project to integrate GeM with the Indian Railways E-Procurement System (IREPS) will be launched by next month while the process of integrating GeM with India Post and Ministry of Panchayati Raj is in progress.

Shri Piyush Goyal asked GeM authorities to wrap up the pending audit by the Directorate of Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC).

The GeM is a 100% Government owned Company setup under the aegis of Department of Commerce for procurement of goods and services by Central and State Government organizations.

Since its launch August 9, 2016, the order value of GeM has grown more than 90 times, - from Rs.422 crore in FY2016-17 to over Rs.38,620 crore last Financial Year with MSMEs constituting 56,7% share of total order value. More than 55,400 Buyers and 30,66,400 Sellers have onboarded the GeM. The portal now provides trade in 16,456 products and 206 Service categories.

The GeM portal was recently declared the winner in the "Best Use of Digital Technology" category at the CIPS Excellence in Procurement Awards 2021 (CIPS Awards). The CIPS Awards are one of the leading recognitions around procurement globally, which is conducted under the aegis of The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), London.

11-Aug-2021: Government e-Marketplace (GeM) organizes 5th edition of National Public Procurement Conclave

The 5th edition of the National Public Procurement Conclave (NPPC) was organized by Government e-Marketplace (GeM) in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry [CII] on August 9th&10th, 2021 on the theme “Technology enabled Government Procurement – Towards Efficiency, Transparency, and Inclusiveness”.

The conclave was inaugurated virtually by Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Smt. Anupriya Patel on August 9, 2021 in the presence of Shri BVR Subrahmanyam, Secretary Commerce and Chairman GeM. Delivering the inaugural address, the Minister said that GeM has been instrumental in transforming the public procurement scenario in the country. She emphasized upon the larger objective of GeM focusing on inclusivity. Shri B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, a guest of honour at the event, echoed the vision of  Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi of "Local goes Global" and suggested that GeM should explore possibilities to support the concept of an Atmanirbhar Bharat and giving a fillip to the Make in India ecosystem in the country.

The conference featured an overview session on GeM which took participants through the platform’s key features and functionalities. The Conclave also had an eclectic range of panel discussions ranging from promotion of MSMEs in public procurement to how fintech can enable access to credit for sellers and service providers doing business with the Government. Some of the other highlights at NPPC 2021 included the virtual B2B and B2G meetings between Govt. buyers and sellers, training and technical sessions on GeM features and new developments, a virtual GeM stall to resolve queries on the spot and facilitate registration of sellers and buyers, special session for Services such as Hospitality, Travel and Accommodation bookings, on GeM and DIVE sessions where buyers and sellers made online presentations to the participants.

This year’s Conclave provided an excellent opportunity for Government buyers, sellers, industry, and academia to interact with each other, and served as an online platform for sellers to showcase their products and services through the CII’s HIVE Digital Platform. Digital Exhibition of various products and services by sellers that are available on the GeM platform will be showcased during the Conclave for 30 days from August 9- September 9, 2021.

As a fitting closure and to commemorate the undying support of GeM’s stakeholders, the top performing buyers and sellers were awarded for leading the procurement efforts through GeM in financial year 2020-21. These awards were presented by Shri. P.K. Singh, CEO, GeM to the top 2 entities based on order value and order volume.

For Central Govt. Buyers, the winner was Ministry of Defence while the runner up in this category was Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. For State Govt. Buyers, Uttar Pradesh was adjudged the winner, while the runner up in this category was Gujarat. For CPSEs the winner was GAIL India Limited followed by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. Ltd. On the seller’s front, the award was presented to TATA Motors Ltd. for best sales performance with Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. being the runner up in this category.

In his valedictory address, Shri. P.K. Singh, CEO, GeM congratulated the award winners and thanked them for partnering with GeM in this journey of transforming public procurement through extensive use of technology. He also resonated the vision of the Prime Minister towards creating GeM as a public procurement portal to promote transparency, efficiency and inclusivity.

16-Jun-2021: GeM providing increasing market access to seller groups like MSEs, Women SHGs and Startups to reinforce the Make in India Initiative

Secretary, department of Commerce, Government of India Dr Anup Wadhawan today said that Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is providing increasing market access to seller groups like MSEs, Women SHGs, Startups reinforcing the Make in India Initiative and Govt of India’s policy to promote local MSEs.

Speaking to media, he said that presently GeM has over 6,90,000 MSE sellers and service providers onboard contributing  over 56% of the total order value on GeM, which is a testament to GeM’s success in not only onboarding but also engaging with the MSEs to help them participate in public procurement. The number of MSEs registered on the GeM platform has increased by over 62% since the last FY (2019-20). And this is a tremendous achievement- considering that there were only around 3000 MSMEs in FY 2016-17.

Since its inception in August 2017, GeM has facilitated 67.27 lakh orders worth 111,113 Crores from 18.85 lakh registered sellers and service providers for 52,275 Govt buyers. Most importantly, 6,95,432 MSE sellers and service providers have fulfilled 56.13 percent of the total order value on GeM.

Recently, MSME Ministry launched a new Udyam Registration Scheme for all MSME businesses as per the new MSME policy. The new Udyam form has a provision to take consent from businesses for auto-registration on GeM portal. In order to further smoothen the seller registration process for MSEs on the portal, GeM has operationalized API integration with Udyam Registration databases and details of MSMEs, who have given their consent to share their details with GeM, are being auto imported on GeM for creation of their seller profile and notification. As on 31st May 2021, 18,75,427 vendors are registered on GeM out of which 6,98,178 are MSEs and the share of procurement from MSEs on the portal is approx. 57 percent.

Providing online market access to under-served seller groups has reinforced the “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, “Vocal for Local”, “Make in India” initiative and Govt of India’s policy to promote local MSEs. The GeM platform has ensured effective and seamless implementation of the Make in India policy and the Public Procurement Policy for Preference to Micro and Small Enterprises. In order to provide an impetus to the Make in India initiative as part of the vision of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat”, and to promote local products through the “Vocal for Local” initiative, the Government has made it mandatory for all sellers on GeM to list the Country of Origin while registering new products.

GeM is a dedicated platform for Startups to list their innovative products under 10 globally recognized Startup subsectors was launched on 15th November 2019. At present there are 9,980 Startups registered on GeM and 87 of these Startups have listed their innovative products on Startup Runway.

To address the credit access challenges faced by MSMEs a latest functionality also being rolled out specially for SMEs is the GeMSAHAY app. The #GeMSAHAY initiative paves way for frictionless financing by leveraging fintech. MSEs can now get a loan at the point of acceptance of an order on the #GeM platform. It will help in meeting the working capital needs and ensure “access to finance” for MSEs.

One of the major challenges faced by SMEs is access to timely cash-flow based financing, since borrower assessment is typically being done on collaterals. Even though there are schemes like TReDS which facilitate loans, SMEs continue to find it difficult to avail of uncollateralized cash-based loans. These challenges had been reviewed and recommendations were made towards resolving the same by RBI’s UK Sinha MSME Committee through its report in June 2019. The ‘SAHAY’ initiative- a mobile application for lending- comparable to BHIM for the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), was launched to address these issues.

GeM is collaborating with the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT), a non-profit tech think tank’s volunteer team for the implementation of the GeM- SAHAY project, which has been tailored to meet the specific needs of MSMEs on the GeM platform.  Sellers applying for the loan facility will experience a seamless end to end digital experience with a mobile application.

Through the ‘GeM SAHAY’ app, loan disbursement will be instantaneous, instead of the conventional in-principle approval of loan that may very often not culminate in an actual disbursal. This facility will provide GeM sellers who are sole proprietors, with the best loan offers from top lenders in the country including public sector banks, private banks and NBFCs.

The GeM SAHAY platform is ‘lender agnostic’, allowing for any lender, duly regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, to participate and provide capital and smart collection accounts to the Sellers on GeM.

GeM is proactively implementing several functionalities to ensure that payment cycles are kept as short as possible so that MSEs are incentivized to participate in public procurement in large numbers. GeM has designed its payment terms such that Buyers are mandated to make payments within 10 days of acceptance of material. Also, GeM has implemented a process under which if a buyer or a consignee does not take timely actions in accepting / rejecting the material or in making the payments, the GeM system itself triggers reminders and also initiates auto PRC, Auto CRAC and auto payments in the case of General Pool Account payment method. Further a provision has been introduced which will penalize the Buyers in terms of deduction of interest penalty on their funds if they delay payments to sellers against GeM contracts.

GeM was the first e-commerce portal in the country which had started displaying the “Country of Origin” of all products on the product description page prominently for giving its Buyers the right to make informed decision of procurement. Now it is mandatory for all sellers to upfront declare the Country of Origin without which they cannot upload products on GeM.

Going a step further, GeM has also started highlighting the Local Content % on the product description page prominently. So even within the products made in India, buyers can identify products that have higher local content and take informed decision accordingly. Buyers have been provided with a filter in the marketplace to identify and select products from amongst MII complaint sellers / products only. Sellers who do not declare Local Content % while uploading product and creating catalogue on GeM will lose out on business and will not be able to participate in bids in which buyer has chosen to procure only MII compliant products.

Public Procurement Policy for Preference for MSE and Make in India are fully implemented on GeM. In the GeM Marketplace a MII filter has been provided using which the Buyer can filter out all non-local suppliers and restrict its procurements under Direct Purchase and L-1 Purchase from amongst Local Suppliers only.

GeM has been working closely with Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Textiles, Ministry of MSME, National Bamboo Mission, Ministry of Agriculture to develop “GeM Outlet Stores” and provide online “access to markets” for under-served seller groups in remote rural areas. A dedicated portal showcasing exquisitely handcrafted tribal handicrafts, textiles, paintings and minor forest produce was developed with TRIFED, Ministry of Tribal Affairs and launched on 27th June 2020. Presently, there are more than 4,000 products made by tribal entrepreneurs are listed on the portal. GeM has initiated the seamless onboarding of nearly 18 lakh artisans and 35 lakh weavers/ allied workers with Department of Handicrafts and Handloom, Ministry of Textiles on 17th July 2020. At present 28,365 artisans and 1.49 lakh weavers have been registered on GeM as sellers and are in the process of uploading their products in the relevant product categories. “ Khadi India” also showcasing a range of exquisitely handwoven natural fibre cloth products from the weavers of India and aims to provide them in rural areas with market access to Government byers. More than 4,100 sellers have successfully registered on the GeM portal. “The Divyangjan Collection” being a unique initiative to showcase finely crafted products made by persons with disabilities/ Divyangjan and aims to provide Divyangjan with market access to Government buyers, NGOs working with Divyangjan can list their products in 6 exclusive product categories and in the regular marketplace on GeM.

The Saras Collection is a dedicated portal showcasing daily utility products made by self-help groups [SHG] was developed in collaboration with Ministry of Rural Development and launched on 04th May 2020.  Presently, there are more than 3,000 SHGs registered sellers on GeM and have listed approximately 1,000 products on the portal.

A unique initiative of the National Bamboo Mission and GeM, “The Green Gold Collection” showcases a range of exquisitely handcrafted bamboo and bamboo products, handicrafts, disposals and daily utility products, and aims to provide bamboo artisans, weavers and entrepreneurs in rural areas with market access to Government buyers. Approximately more than 1,200 sellers have successfully registered and listed their products on the portal. This initiative seeks to promote the adoption and use of bamboo products among Govt buyers and usher a sustainable rural economy for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.

GeM has dedicated outreach and training teams which provide both offline and online needs-based trainings and webinars to empower all sellers across the country, in their language and customized to their unique contexts. GeM also has a dedicated online Learning Management System (LMS) Portal has been developed where all training resources on using the platform have been uploaded. The chatbot “GeMmy” provides an array of services like a virtual assistant while onboarding any type of seller on to the platform for intuitive contextual assistance.

9-Aug-2020: Fourth edition of the National Public Procurement Conclave inaugurated

The Fourth edition of the National Public Procurement Conclave [NPPC], organized by Government e Marketplace [GeM], in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry [CII] for two days, was inaugurated online by Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Commerce and Industry & Railways Minister today, to coincide with the anniversary of GeM Establishment Day. The theme of NPPC is “Technology enabled Government Procurement – Towards efficiency, transparency, and inclusiveness”,

Lauding the success of GeM in becoming a game changer in the Government procurement, Shri Goyal called upon more and more buyers and sellers to join the system. Expressing the confidence that GeM will be able to unlock the value and save money for the nation’s development, he said that it has helped in transparent, seamless, easy, efficient and faster procurements. All the information is available at one place, and any outlier trying to manipulate the system can be easily identified. He said that the Government’s decision to ask the buyers to give interest for delayed payments in GeM is a significant step. At the same time, he also cautioned the unscrupulous sellers from pushing the poor quality goods or charging exorbitant prices, as they will not only be blacklisted from the GeM portal but from the entire Government ecosystem.

Shri Piyush Goyal welcomed the offer from the CII to partner with GeM and expand the reach to the nook and corner of the country. He said that GeM has the advantage of being seamless, transparent, open and efficient and technology-driven, and this will gain momentum if more and more buyers and sellers join the system.  More procurement orders will lead to more sellers joining it, leading to more competition, and availability of quality products at cheaper prices. “More the merrier”, said the Minister.

The Minister said that the Government has been making continuous efforts to reach out to all sections of the society, especially the marginalized ones, who were denied basic amenities for a long time. He said that the Government procurement is very large and has to be efficient. “Every penny saved is penny earned”, said the minister. The greater competition and efficiency helps the Government save money which is then used for the public good, and reach out to those who deserve this. Shri Goyal said that the Government has been bringing honesty and eliminating corruption. “ Technology leads to Transparency which leads to Trust, which helps in Transformation of the country.  We have moved from Corruption to Clean Government which has raised the Confidence of people, and which is leading to greater Commerce within the country and internationally.”

The Minister said that as the television media’s success is measured by TRP ratings, the Success of GeM can be measured by Trust (Of people in government procurement), Reliability (In supply of quality products at low cost and timely manner) and Prosperity (of the nation and the people). He said that maximum efficiency comes from the minimum government, and e-process in procurement is a step in this direction.

The Minister announced that GeM and Indian railways are working earnestly to integrate the latter’s procurements with the former. He said that the railways presently spend about Rs 70,000 crore per annum on procurements and the integration of the system with the GeM will lead to saving of at least 10-15% which is almost Rs 10,000 Crore. He said that besides savings of money, the integration will save efforts, manpower and bring in more efficiency and transparency in the system.

Shri Som Parkash, Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that the Conclave provided an excellent opportunity to Buyers and Sellers to interact. He said Women Entrepreneurs, start-ups, Artisans, Weavers, Self-Help Groups and MSMEs will find such platforms very useful. He called for reduction of Government purchases from outside the Gem system.

Shri Talleen Kumar, CEO, GeM, said that GeM aims to enhance efficiency, transparency, inclusiveness in public procurement and provides the tools of Direct Procurement, e-Bidding, and Reverse Auction to facilitate buyers achieve the best value for their money. He said that GeM has evolved as an increasingly transparent, efficient and inclusive platform, with MSMEs making up over 57% of the cumulative Gross Merchandise Value on GeM. In order to provide an impetus to the Make in India initiative as part of the vision of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat”, and also to promote local products through the “Vocal for Local” initiative, the Government has made it mandatory for all sellers on GeM to list the Country of Origin while registering new products. Over the next couple of months, GeM shall be rolling out GeM 4.0 – which will be anchored in the Unified Procurement System.

The key features of this year’s online conclave include a detailed overview of the enhanced version of GeM – GeM 4.0, followed by virtual panel sessions on role of MSMEs, Startups, Women Entrepreneurs, Weavers & Artisans, Information Technology, Defense and Railways in Public Procurement. Some of the other highlights at NPPC 2020 include virtual B2B and B2G meetings between Govt buyers and sellers, training and technical sessions on GeM features and new developments, a virtual GeM stall to resolve queries on the spot and facilitate registration of sellers and buyers, special session for Services.

23-Jun-2020: Information about Country of Origin by the sellers made mandatory on GeM to promote Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat

Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a Special Purpose Vehicle under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has made it mandatory for sellers to enter the Country of Origin while registering all new products on GeM. Further, sellers, who had already uploaded their products before the introduction of this new feature on GeM, are being reminded regularly to update the Country of Origin, with a warning that their products shall be removed from GeM if they fail to update the same. GeM has taken this significant step to promote ‘Make in India’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.

GeM has also enabled a provision for indication of the percentage of local content in products. With this new feature, now, the Country of Origin as well as the local content percentage are visible in the marketplace for all items. More importantly, the ‘Make in India’ filter has now been enabled on the portal. Buyers can choose to buy only those products that meet the minimum 50% local content criteria. In case of Bids, Buyers can now reserve any bid for Class I Local suppliers (Local Content > 50%). For those Bids below INR 200 crore, only Class I and Class II Local Suppliers (Local content > 50% and > 20% respectively) are eligible to bid, with Class I supplier getting purchase preference. Some Snapshots of the Local Content Features on the GeM Portal are shown in Annexure.

Since its inception, GeM is continuously working towards promotion of ‘Make in India’ initiative.  The Marketplace has facilitated entry of small local sellers in Public Procurement, while implementing ‘Make in India’ and MSE Purchase Preference Policies of the Government in the true sense. GeM is enabling quick, efficient, transparent and cost-effective procurement, especially in this hour of need when government organizations require products and services urgently to fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. The purchases through GeM by Government users have been authorised and made mandatory by Ministry of Finance by adding a new Rule No. 149 in the General Financial Rules, 2017.

4-May-2020: “The Saras Collection” on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal

The Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj and Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, launched “The Saras Collection” on the Government e Marketplace (GeM) portal at Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi today. A unique initiative of GeM and the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development, the Saras Collection showcases daily utility products made by rural self-help groups (SHGs) and aims to provide SHGs in rural areas with market access to Central and State Government buyers.

Under this initiative, the SHG sellers will be able to list their products in 5 product categories, namely (i) handicrafts, (ii) handloom and textiles, (iii) office accessories, (iv) grocery and pantry, and (v) personal care and hygiene. In the first phase, 913 SHGs from 11 States have already registered as sellers and 442 products have been on-boarded. In order to develop a scalable model capable of onboarding a large number of SHGs across the country in a short time frame, GeM has developed an API based integration mechanism with the NRLM database.

GeM will provide dashboards for functionaries at the national, state, district and block level to provide them real time information about the number of products uploaded by SHGs, and value and volume of orders received and fulfilled. In addition, Government buyers shall be sensitized through system generated messages/ alerts in the Marketplace about availability of SHG products on the portal. Potential buyers shall be able to search, view, cart and procure such products through the stipulated modes of procurement.

The on-boarding of the SHGs under the initiative has been initially piloted in the States of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The coverage shall be rapidly extended to enable a large number of SHGs from all the states/ Union Territories to sell their products to Government buyers.

In order to handhold and facilitate the SHGs in uploading their products, GeM, along with the State and National Rural Livelihoods Missions,are assisting the sellers with product catalogue management, order fulfilment and bid participation. GeM shall also collaborate with State functionaries to address the capacity building and training needs of SHGs, and build up their competencies required for order packaging, catalogue management and logistics.

With inputs and assistance from NRLM and SRLMs, GeM will develop online learning resources in vernacular content for SHGs and SRLM staff to meet user specific needs. Further, GeM will conduct online webinars for SHGs and functionaries at State Livelihoods Missions and develop videos, eBooks, Manual and repository of FAQs fora seamless learning experience.

By providing SHGs with direct access to Government buyers, the Saras Collection will do away with intermediaries in the supply chain, thus ensuring better prices for SHGs and spurring employment opportunities at the local level. This is just the beginning and GeM is delighted at this opportunity to partner the SHGs in their growth story.

The SHGs deserve to be specially commended for the manner in which they, like the entire country, are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic valiantly at this time of national health emergency of unprecedented and historic scale.

23-Oct-2019: Gem Partners With Federal Bank For Payment Related Services

The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Federal Bank to offer a number of services including transfer of funds through GeM Pool Accounts (GPA), advising of Performance Bank Guarantees (e-PBG) and Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) to the registered users on the portal. The MoU will facilitate a cashless, paperless and transparent payment system on the portal and would create an efficient procurement system for government entities.

GeM is also working with Banks, TReDs, and SIDBI to provide bill discounting and financing of working capital where the cost of capital is linked to the performance & rating of a seller on GeM. This will help the sellers in general & the MSMEs in particular to access easy credit and do better business with the government. In addition, GeM is contemplating the creation of EMD pool account for making it easy for sellers to comply with the EMD requirements while responding to bids.

11-Sep-2019: GeM and Punjab Government sign MoU for Setting up Project Management Unit

Government e Marketplace (GeM) under the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce & Industry and Government of Punjab, signed MoU to set up a GeM Organizational Transformation Team (GOTT) Project Management Unit (PMU) in the state. The MoU was signed by Additional CEO, GeM, S. Suresh Kumar, and Director Industries, Government of Punjab, C. Sibinat Chandigarh on 10th September 2019.

GeM, the national public procurement portal launched in August 2016 has transformed the public procurement landscape in the country with transparency, efficiency and inclusion. It has facilitated procurement worth over Rs. 34,000 crore of goods & services by various Government Departments, Organisations and PSUs.

To further strengthen and enable Government departments towards a market based procurement, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, Government of India has advised Ministries and Departments of Central and State Governments to consider services of GOTT on an outcome based self-sustenance model. GOTT will assist the buyer agency to redesign the procurement processes and enhance competencies to derive maximum benefit from the online marketplace.

Government of Punjab is the first State which will establish GOTT PMU for effectively utilising this transformational initiative towards inclusive, efficient and transparent procurement. Among the CPSUs, SAIL has already signed MoU for setting up of PMU. Many other states and CPSUs are in the process of setting up GOTT PMUs.

It is projected that through the initiatives of GOTT PMU, Government of Punjab will be able to transact around Rs 1700 crore in terms of annual Gross Merchandize Value (GMV) on GeM platform in the first year and over Rs 3000 crore per annum, over a period of time.

19-Jul-2019: Rs. 1 lakh crore Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) on GeM.

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Railways, Piyush Goyal, chaired a meeting to review and formulate an action plan for Government e Marketplace (GeM) to achieve a target of for Rs. 1 lakh crore Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) on GeM in FY 2019-20.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Som Parkash also attended the meeting. Chairman, Railway Board and Secretaries of Departments of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Commerce and Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and Secretaries of Ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Housing and Urban Affairs, New & Renewable Energy and Power also participated in the meeting to explore various possibilities of bringing on board more Government of India Ministries/ Departments, PSUs under Ministries and State Governments on the GeM platform.

Commerce & Industry Minister appreciated the transformation in public procurement driven through GeM platform. He directed the officers to maximize the use of GeM to ensure transparency and saving in procurements. He said that the procedure for using the GeM platform has to be made more simple, less time consuming and attractive so that more and more vendors, especially from the MSME sector, come on board. Ease of getting registered on the GeM platform has to be ensured so that public sector banks, PSUs, Ministries and Departments of the State Governments and local bodies at the district level are able to procure from GeM easily and smoothly.

Piyush Goyal urged GeM officers to work proactively with all the Ministries and State Governments and hand hold them to show that GeM is beneficial for them. Greater transparency and quality of products must be ensured on the platform in order to get the Railways, Defence, Telecom and PSUs like Oil, Power, Heavy Industry to place orders of more than one lakh crore through the GeM platform.

Possibilities may also be explored for incentivizing Ministries and States who procure more products and services from GeM. During the review meeting Commerce and Industry Minister also examined the possibility of DGFT to provide the services of their staff in regional centres all over the country to promote GeM and increase the procurement through GeM in their areas.

During the review meeting Commerce & Industry Minister also discussed ways with the Secretaries, who were present, of bringing in external technical experts for specialized products required by railways, Oil PSUs, health sector etc., so that more categories are created in GeM in shortest time and complaints about substandard material is completely eliminated.

Commerce & Industry Minister requested all Ministries and Departments of Government of India to nominate a Joint Secretary level officer to coordinate with GeM and to identify more products and services that may be procured through the GeM platform.

19-Feb-2019: Commerce Minister launches ‘SWAYATT’ on GeM

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, launched SWAYATT.  SWAYATT is an initiative to promote Start-ups, Women and Youth Advantage Through e-Transactions on Government e Marketplace (GeM). This will bring together the key stakeholders within the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem to Government e-Marketplace the national procurement portal.

On this occasion, Commerce Minister also dedicated GeM Start-up Runway-an initiative of GeM in association with Start -up India to facilitate Start-ups registered with Start -up India to access the public procurement market and sell innovative products and services to government buyers.

Suresh Prabhu also felicitated a few successful entrepreneurs from Women Self Help Groups, Start-ups and MSMEs in GeM.

Suresh Prabhu appreciated the achievements of GeM reaching out and empowering these diverse groups and reiterated the need to support and strengthen such initiatives and enterprises which constitute the backbone of the Indian economy. He also appreciated the event for impressively showcasing many such successful efforts of SHGs, Start-ups, Women enterprises, MSMEs partnering GeM.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, C.R. Chaudhary, released a movie on GeM SWAYATT and expressed hope that the national launch of SWAYATT would further seek to promote inclusiveness by catapulting various categories of sellers and service providers, take proactive steps to facilitate the training and registrations of such specific category of manufacturers and sellers, develop women entrepreneurship and encourage participation of MSME sector and Start-ups in public procurement.

CEO GeM, Radha Chauhan, introduced the concept of SWAYATT and Start-up Runway.

The event which was web cast LIVE across the country, witnessed enthusiastic participation from all over India including policy makers, social activists, artisans, women entrepreneurs, and start-ups who will work to ensure market linkages for these sections in public procurement.

Women Self Help Groups, Start-ups, and Government Organization had exhibited 24 stalls at the venue. The event partners included various Ministries like Women & Child Development, Electronics & IT, MSME, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and Rural Development and Skill Development apart from industry associations financial institutions, autonomous bodies like NSIC, KVIC, CCIC and SPVs - Invest India and Start-up India.

GeM Start-up Runway seeks to align certified Start-ups with Government procurement orders and contracts, to enable Start-ups in scaling operations from ideation to growth stage in minimal time, and spur hyper-local job-creation and wealth-generation and for achieving socially-inclusive economic growth.

While Government has relaxed norms in Public Procurement for Start-ups by exempting them from prior experience, prior turnover and Earnest Money Deposit [EMD] stipulations, subject to meeting of quality and technical specifications, product comparison and price discovery are two major constraints for Government buyers in procuring innovative products from Start-ups.

Start-up Runway will enable Start-ups to conduct market trials with government buyers, seek time-bound feedback and gain realistic product, price comparison and market valuation from potential buyers and investors.

Certified Start-ups will register on GeM portal as a seller with their DPIIT number, provide basic description about the performance of their products/services along with the Test Certificates of quality, their functional utility and specify potential user Ministry/ departments where these products can be used.

Ministries and departments will be sensitised proactively through system generated messages/ alerts in Marketplace about availability of such innovative products on the portal  Potential buyers can evaluate these products and services with respect to their utility, uniqueness with respect to design, process and concept, and provide feedback in a time-bound interval and manner. Innovative products with 3+ ratings on a rating scale of (1-5) from 3 or more buyers will be accepted for listing as a regular product or service on GeM

Approximately 1,516 Start-ups are presently registered on GeM with 12,915 products to offer and have received more than 5,000 orders till date.

GeM Start-up Runway seeks to support technology development, spur research and innovation by ensuring a conducive policy environment for industrial diversification and value addition to commodities, and aligns with Government’s philosophy to turn Job-seekers into job-creators.

GeM Start-up Runway will address goals and objectives under United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Government e Marketplace, an online market place for procurement of common use goods and services by government ministries, departments and CPSEs was setup in 2016 and has 801,956 products and 5,197 services, with 199,654 registered sellers, service providers and 33,536 government buyers.  Since inception, GeM has processed 1,386,030 orders worth Rs. 19,214 crore in gross merchandise value.

8-Feb-2019: GeM and CCI Sign MoU

Government e Marketplace (GeM) and Competition Commission of India (CCI) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding on 6th February 2019 to enable a fair and competitive environment in the e-Marketplace.

Both CCI and GeM appreciate the importance of advanced analytical tools and processes for identification of malpractices like cartelization. In order to pool their knowledge of the public procurement domain for detection of Anti-competitive practices the MoU has been signed.

GeM is a state-of-the-art national public procurement platform of Ministry of Commerce and Industries, that has used technology to remove entry barriers for bonafide sellers and has created a vibrant e-marketplace with a wide range of goods and services.

Competition Commission of India is a statutory body of the Government of India, responsible for enforcing the Competition Act, 2002 throughout India and to prevent activities that have an adverse effect on competition.

14-Jan-2019: Womaniya on Government e Marketplace

Government e Marketplace [GeM] has launched “Womaniya on GeM”, an initiative to enable women entrepreneurs and women self-help groups [WSHGs] to sell handicrafts and handloom, accessories, jute and coir products, home décor and office furnishings, directly to various Government ministries, departments and institutions. The initiative seeks to develop women entrepreneurship on the margins of society to achieve gender-inclusive economic growth.

CEO GeM, S Radha Chauhan, released a 3-minute video to highlight the essence and benefits of the Womaniya initiative. She stressed the fact that nearly 80 percent women-owned establishments are self-financed and more than 60 percent of 8 million units are owned and or led by women entrepreneurs from socially-challenged sections of the society. Since women tend to invest up to 90 percent of their earnings back in their families to provide better nutrition, health care and education to their children, economic empowerment of women is a step in the direction of poverty alleviation.

Womaniya homepage [https://gem.gov.in/womaniya] will inform procurement officers in various government ministries, departments and CPSEs about the drive to promote procurement of common use goods and services from women entrepreneurs. Products like handicrafts and handloom, accessories, jute and coir products, home décor and office furnishings are categorized for ease-in-procurement. The initiative aligns with Government’s initiatives for MSMEs, especially to reserve 3 percent in government procurement from women entrepreneurs.

India has approximately 500 million Internet users and nearly 54 percent of them are more than 25 years of age with higher discretionary income and likely to transact more online, half of internet users reside in small towns and present new opportunities for e-commerce and most importantly women constitute 33 percent or 143 million Internet users and control 44 percent of household spending in India.

Womaniya on GeM will spur hyper-local economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs and address goals and objectives under United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Government e Marketplace is a 100 percent government owned company setup under the aegis of Ministry of Commerce and Industry for procurement of common use goods and services by Government ministries, departments and CPSEs. GeM was setup in 2016 and has 731,431 product categories, with 180,862 registered sellers and 32,114 government buyers. Since inception, GeM has processed 1,171,761 orders worth Rs. 16,976 crores in gross merchandise value.

13-Dec-2018: National Mission on Government e-Market (GeM) portal

The National Mission on GeM (NMG) was launched on 5th September 2018 till 17th October 2018. The objective of the Mission was to accelerate the adoption and use of Procurement by Major Central Ministries, States and UTs and their agencies (including CPSUs/PSUs, Local Bodies) on the GeM platform. The objectives of the NMG were to:

• Promote inclusiveness by catapulting various categories of sellers and service providers
• Highlight and communicate ‘value add’ by way of transparency and efficiency in public procurement, including corruption free governance.
• Achieve cashless, contactless and paperless transaction, in line with Digital India objectives.
• Increase overall efficiency leading to significant cost saving on government expenditure in Procurement.
• Maximizing ease in availability of all types of products and services bought by Government buyers.

During the mission, 315 events and training programs conducted across 31 states in which there were 22,838 participants. For central Ministries and CPSUs 106 events were conducted in which there were 5,990 participants. In addition to this, there were 18 theme based events organized at National Level covering critical areas of intervention like GeM design and architecture, localization, quality assurance, legal frameworks GeM payments, credit facility, OEMS, education, health and power in which there were 2,222 participants.

The portal was launched on 9th August 2016 as a pilot and gradually scaled up. During the last 2 years and 4 months (till 2nd December 2018),

• Number of orders placed-1,015,519
• Value of orders placed - Rs. 14,959 Crore.

GeM has brought transparency, efficiency, and inclusiveness in public procurement. It has reduced the time of procurements, reduced the process and enabled ease of doing business for both buyers and vendors. There is huge savings in the cost of procurement, ranging from a minimum of 10% to 45% in different categories. The average saving based on the MRP/Listed price is about 28%.

This information was given by the Minister of State of Commerce and Industry, C. R. Chaudhary, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

5-Sep-2018: GeM transactions to touch USD 100 billion in 3 years

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu launched the National Mission on Government eMarketplace (GeM) for increasing awareness and accelerating the use of (GeM). In the next 3 years transactions on GeM will reach USD 100 billion. He further stated that during this mission efforts will be made to bring more self-help groups, artisans and start-ups on this platform. The Central and State Governments along with Banks and PSUs will undertake the national drive from 6th September to 17th October 2018 by organising workshops, roadshow, trainings, events and other information, education and communication activities, including buyer and seller registration.

The National Mission will cover all central government departments, states and public sector undertakings in a mission mode. It is aimed at creating awareness about GeM, train the buyers and sellers, get them registered in GeM and increase the procurement through GeM. The aim of this mission is to promote inclusiveness by empowering various categories of sellers and service providers such as MSMEs, start-ups, domestic manufacturers, women entrepreneurs, and Self-Help Groups. It will also Highlight and communicate the value addition via transparency and efficiency in public procurement, including corruption-free governance in sync with the Central Government’s objective of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. The mission also aims to give a boost to cashless, contactless, paperless transactions in line with Digital India objectives. It will improve overall efficiency and driving significant savings in Government procurement spends and it will maximize easy availability of all types of products and services procured by Government buyers via registration drives for existing vendors, further expanding the base of online products and services. Widespread training initiatives will be undertaken across the country, ensuring on-boarded buyers and sellers are aware of all GeM features.

Government eMarketplace is the national public procurement portal offering an online, end-to-end, solution for procurement of common use goods and services by government departments. GeM provides an open, inclusive, transparent and efficient online marketplace, which provides huge savings to government. It is mandatory for central government departments to procure through GeM. 25 states and Union Territories have signed MoU with GeM to adopt it as the mandatory mode of procurement for their departments so far.

GeM deploys technology to completely automate procurement processes and systems, introducing greater accountability in public procurement across India. In two years of its operations, GeM has recorded more than 7.25 lakh transactions worth over Rs.11,250 crores and established itself as an open, transparent, efficient and inclusive platform providing huge savings to the government. The portal has nearly 27 thousand buyer organisations registered and about 1.37 lakh sellers and service providers offering more than 4.65 lakh products and services for online purchase and contributes to approximately 20-25% average overall savings to the Government.

11-Jul-2017: Six states, UT sign pact with Centre on e-Marketplace

In a spirit of cooperative federalism, six states/Union Territories (UT) formally adopted the Centre’s initiative called the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) that aims to ensure that public procurement of goods and services in India worth more than ₹5 lakh crore annually is carried out through the online platform for transparency and to eliminate corruption.

The states and the UT that signed an MoU with the Centre include Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Telangana, Puducherry and Arunachal Pradesh.

Four more, including Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, will ink such an MoU soon. This follows a call made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to all the Chief Ministers in April to ensure that priority is accorded to transparency in public procurement of goods and services.

All efforts were being made to strengthen the GeM initiative to ensure that the tax payers’ money is spent in a transparent manner.

12-Apr-2017: Procurement of Goods through Government-E-Market (GeM)

As per Rule 149 of the GFR-2017, procurement of Goods and Services by Ministries/ Departments of Central Government has been made mandatory for Goods or Services available on GeM.

GeM is an online end to end procurement portal. All the activities from registration of Buyers and Sellers to purchase and even payment to the Sellers through Public Financial Management Service are completely online. Three methods of procurement are followed as per Rule 149 of GFR-2017. The prices listed by any seller are visible to all the Registered Buyers and Sellers. Moreover, to promote transparency, the Bidding and Reverse Auction notices are sent to all the Sellers who are available for that product on GeM through email/SMS and notice on the homepage of GeM. All the contracts are available in public domain. The complete Audit trail is available for viewing at any time.

GeM is not mandatory for State Governments. It is left to their discretion to procure through GeM. However, some State Government organizations are making procurement through GeM viz Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Telangana, Odisha, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tripura, Haryana and Uttarakhand.

GeM, being a technology driven platform, has better functionality and capability to centrally drive and monitor compliance of various Government policies towards promotion of domestic manufacturers, in public procurement.

12-Apr-2017: Cabinet approves setting up of a Special Purpose Vehicle to be called Government e-Marketplace (GeM SPV)

The Union Cabinet has given its approval for the following:-

1. Setting up of a Special Purpose Vehicle to be called Government e-Marketplace (GeM SPV) as the National Public Procurement Portal as Section 8 Company registered under the Companies Act, 2013, for providing procurement of goods & services required by Central & State Government organizations. GeM SPV shall provide an end-to-end online Marketplace for Central and State Government Ministries / Departments, Central & State Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs & SPSUs), Autonomous institutions and Local bodies, for procurement of common use goods & services in a transparent and efficient manner.
2. DGS&D shall be wound up and cease its functions by 31st October, 2017. In case it is not possible to wind up DGS&D by 31st October, 2017, the Department may extend the date of closure with proper justification latest upto 31st March, 2018.

23-Jan-2017: Government e-Marketplace

Introduction: Public procurement forms a very important part of Government activity and reform in Public Procurement is one of the top priorities of the present Government. Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is a very bold step of the Government with the aim to transform the way in which procurement of goods and services is done by the Government Ministries/Departments, PSUs, autonomous bodies etc.

Background: GeM owes its genesis to the recommendations of two Groups of Secretaries made to the Hon’ble PM in January 2016. They recommended setting up of a dedicated e-market for different goods & services procured/sold by Government/PSUs besides reforming DGS&D. Subsequently, the Hon’ble FM in his Budget speech for FY 2016-17, announced setting up of a technology driven platform to facilitate procurement of goods and services by various Ministries and agencies of the Government.

DGS&D with technical support of NeGD (MeitY) has developed GeM portal for procurement of both Products & Services. The portal was launched on 9th August 2016 by the Hon’ble Commerce & Industry Minister. Procurement on GeM has been authorized by GFR by adding Rule 141A (DoE OM dated 3rd May 2016). Presently more than 7400 products in about 150 product categories and hiring of transport service are available on GeM POC portal. Transactions for more than                                                              Rs 140 Crore have already been processed through GeM.

GeM is a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-market place that enables procurement of common use goods and services with minimal human interface.

Benefits of GeM to the Government, Sellers and the Indian industry and economy:

Transparency: GeM eliminates human interface in vendor registration, order placement and payment processing, to a great extent. Being an open platform, GeM offers no entry barriers to bonafide suppliers who wish to do business with the Government. At every step, SMS and e-Mail notifications are sent to both buyer, his/her head of organization, paying authorities as well as sellers. Online, cashless and time bound payment on GeM is facilitated through integration with PFMS and State Bank Multi Option System (SBMOPS); web-services integration is being extended to payment systems of Railways, Defence, major PSUs and State Governments. Seamless processes and online time-bound payment, which is also mandated by the OM issued by Department of Expenditure, has given confidence to the vendors and reduced their ‘administrative’ cost involved in pursuing officers for timely payment.

Efficiency: Direct purchase on GeM can be done in a matter of minutes and the entire process in online, end to end integrated and with online tools for assessing price reasonability. For procurements of higher value, the bidding/RA facility on GeM is among the most transparent and efficient, in comparison to e-procurement systems in vogue within the Government sector. For creating a bid/RA, the buyer does not need to create his/her own technical specifications as they have been standardized on GeM. The bid/RA can be created in a matter of minutes and finalized within a minimum of 7 days. The bid/RA is notified via e-mail and SMS to all the eligible suppliers; new suppliers are also notified once they get themselves registered online on GeM and are determined as ‘eligible’ by the system. GeM bidding/RA therefore ensures competition, fair play, speed & efficiency and leads to proper price discovery. The reasonableness of the rates can also be confirmed through online comparison with market price on leading e-Commerce portals. Very soon, GeM will also start getting feeds from various other public procurement portals in order to ensure that the same item has not been procured at a lesser rate by any other Government agency, from the same or a different vendor. The reasonability of price would be further strengthened by way of integration with GSTN and ICEGATE that will enable the buyer to ascertain the price of an item when it exited the factory gate or when it got imported into the country.   These would make GeM an extremely powerful tool in the hands of Government organizations to plan and procure.

Secure and safe: GeM is a completely secure platform and all the documents on GeM are e-Signed at various stages by the buyers and sellers. The antecedents of the suppliers are verified online and automatically through MCA21, Aadhar and PAN databases. In addition, SEBI empaneled credit rating agencies are also being used for conducting third-party assessment of suppliers. This would further strengthen due diligence about the veracity of suppliers wanting to do business on GeM. For high value bids/RA on GeM, an e-Bank Guarantee is also being introduced.

GeM is a far better system than the existing one which relies more on financial instruments (EMD in case of tenders for large procurements only) to guarantee good conduct by the suppliers. In the existing system, there is zero check on the antecedents of the suppliers for small value procurements (upto Rs 1 lakh) whose cumulative value is huge across the Government organizations. GeM does a 100% online verification of all vendors irrespective of the value of procurement.

Potential to support Make in India: On GeM, the filters for selecting goods which are Preferential Market Access (PMA) compliant and those manufactured by Small Scale Industries(SSI), enables the Government buyers to procure Make in India and SSI goods very easily. Easily accessible MIS also enables the administrators and policy makers to easily and effectively enforce the Government regulations on PMA and SSI sourcing. After the launch of GeM it has been noticed that several leading computer manufacturers have placed PMA compliant products on GeM.

Savings to the Government: The transparency, efficiency and ease of use of the GeM portal has resulted in a substantial reduction in prices on GeM, in comparison to the tender, Rate Contract and direct purchase rates. The average prices on GeM are lower by at least 15-20%, and in some cases even upto 56%. GeM is also doing Demand Aggregation for items that are to be procured by various Central/State Government Departments. Demand Aggregation is expected to further drive the prices south, by way of standardization of specifications and economy of scale. Demand aggregation for most of the common use goods and services is estimated to result in annual savings to the tune of Rs 40,000 Crore per annum. If pursued to its logical conclusion, GeM would eventually emerge as the National Public Procurement Portal, keeping in tune with the Global best practices; most of the OECD countries, like USA, South Korea, UK, Singapore etc., have a single NPPP and as a result annual savings of billions of dollars are made in public procurement, besides giving a fillip to the domestic industry.