The Centre’s e-commerce platform, government e-marketplace (GeM), was launched in 2016 with an ambitious goal to become the ‘Flipkart’ — then the byword for large-scale e-commerce in India — of government procurement. Three years and Rs 28,710 crore worth of transactions later, it has more than double the number of sellers than Flipkart.
According to official statistics, the portal, under the commerce and industry ministry, has 259,000 sellers and service providers combined.
Flipkart — currently the second-largest e-marketplace by gross sales — doesn’t sell services. But it advertises to potential sellers that 100, 000 sellers showcase their goods on the platform.
However, GeM is yet to catch up on its basic task of digitising government transactions, estimated at an annual Rs 5.5 trillion. The official target remains Rs 50,000 crore in 2019-20, ultimately hitting Rs 1 trillion worth of procurements by 2021.
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More than 2.1 million separate orders have been placed on the portal till now, with 1.7 million orders in 2018-19 itself, up from 300,000 orders in the preceding year.
All public sector agencies are mandated to directly purchase common-use goods and services through the online portal. While most states have signed a memorandum of understanding with the GeM authority, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh remain the largest buyers.
Source: Business Standard
