Union minister of commerce and industry, consumer affairs, food and public distribution and textiles Piyush Goyal highlighted the ''10x'' growth in procurement from Government e-Marketplace (GeM) in the last three years.

The minister praised all the stakeholders of GeM for being a catalyst of change during his address at the ‘Kreta-Vikreta Gaurav Samman Samaroh 2023’ organized by GeM in New Delhi Monday.

Goyal lauded the efforts of the awardees, whose contribution has brought about the transformational change in the public procurement landscape of the country. The Minister noted that GeM is endeavouring to achieve the vision of prime minister Narendra Modi of a unified, transparent and efficient procurement system through leveraging technology and analytics. He emphasised how GeM has enabled benefits of scale and achieved multidimensional growth in the last seven years.

He said that the saving of taxpayers' money has resulted in its better utilisation for public welfare projects, due to increased use of GeM by central and state departments for procurement of goods and services. The minister expressed hope that overall procurement of goods and services from the government portal GeM would cross Rs 3 lakh Crore in FY 2022-23 as it has already crossed Rs 2 lakh crore in 2022-23.

He said that the ministry of commerce and industry is continuously trying to improvise the system. Goyal said that a new system is being developed at GeM, which will be more contemporary and modern with more elements for ease of operations. He said that data analytics will be offered in the new system to help the buyers and sellers in making decisions related to procurement. Shri Goyal said that India's largest software exporter TCS has won the contract for running and maintaining the government procurement portal GeM.

GeM organized the ‘Kreta Vikreta Gaurav Samman Samaroh 2023’ to recognise the outstanding performance of government buyers and sellers in the public procurement process through GeM. The buyer-seller award ceremony is an initiative by GeM to acknowledge the efforts of government buyers and sellers who have performed exceptionally well in using the platform for the procurement process in FY 22-23.
 
GeM has been instrumental in transforming the way government procurement is done in India. Established in 2016, GeM was set up with a vision to bring about a paradigm shift in the country’s public procurement landscape. The platform has enabled transparency, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness in the procurement process, making it easier for buyers to procure goods and services from sellers across the country.

As on 31st March 2023, GeM had recorded a staggering Rs 2 lakh crore of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in FY 2022-23. Cumulatively, GeM has surpassed the Rs 4.29 lakh crore GMV since its inception, with the overwhelming support of its stakeholders. The total number of transactions on GeM has also crossed 1.54 crore. GeM is catering to the diverse procurement needs of over 69,000 government buyer organisations. The portal features over 11,800+ product categories as well as over 280+ service categories. Based on various studies, the minimum savings on the platform are about 10%, which translates into a savings of about Rs 40,000 crore worth of public money.

The Government e-Market (GeM) portal was launched on August 9, 2016, by the ministry of commerce and industry for online purchases of goods and services by all the Central Government Ministries and Departments. GeM has over 63,000 government buyer organisations and over 62 lakh sellers and service providers offering a wide range of products and services.