IGI Logo

Government e Marketplace (GeM) CEO Prashant Kumar Singh has said that the government's GeM portal has clocked a gross merchandise value of Rs 1,24,761 lakh crore at the end of first quarter (Q1FY25), representing a quarter-on-quarter growth of 136 per cent over last year's Rs 52,670 crore. He said that going by this pace, it will become the world's largest platform. South Korea's KONEPS is the largest such platform in the world. GeM stands at the second position. It is followed by Singapore's GeBIZ. GeM portal was launched on August 9, 2016, for online purchases of goods and services by all central government ministries and departments. 

Singh stated that the procurement by central ministries including CPSEs surpassed Rs 1 lakh crore milestone in Q1FY25 with ministries of coal, defence and petroleum and gas emerging as the top procurers in this quarter. Of this Rs 1 lakh crore, CPSEs share accounted for more than Rs 91,000 crore and during the first quarter, services segment has been the prime mover.  Services buying crossed Rs 80,500 crore during the quarter. In 2023-24, the procurement from this portal had crossed Rs 4 lakh crore. 

Talking about the initiatives of the portal, he said that carrying forward its vision of reaching out to the last mile sellers and with an aim to further simplify public procurement, they are planning to roll out 'GeM SAHAYAK' programme which aims at creating a pan-India network of 6,000-7,000 trained and certified accredited trainers. He said the Sahayaks would offer their services to potential and existing GeM sellers in navigating on the portal and enhancing business opportunities. Buyers too will benefit from their services in terms of creation of bids and other value-added services.

To further promote ease of doing business, he said the platform has drastically reduced transaction charges leviable on sellers. As per the new revenue policy of GeM, the sellers/service providers will be charged only 0.30 per cent of the order value (previously 0.45 per cent) on orders worth more than Rs 5 lakh. He added that these transaction charges would be capped at Rs 3 lakh as against Rs 72.50 lakh being changed earlier.