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The government aims to increase the order value of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) to ₹2 lakh crore in the next three years, said Radha Chauhan, Chief Executive Officer, GeM.
Chauhan said the growth will be driven by the services available on the platform. Currently, it is close to ₹17,000 crore. “Services will see a huge jump. Right now we offer close to 40 service categories. We can achieve ₹2 lakh crore by increasing the services offered to 200,” she added.
Since the launch in 2016, the government online procurement portal GeM has seen a significant growth. According to Chauhan, the exponential growth being aspired is possible given how the platform has progressed.
From the sales of ₹426 crore in March 2017, it grew to ₹5,000 crore in March 2018. The current sales value stands at ₹17,000 crore. The platform also has close to 1.8 lakh sellers and service providers selling over seven lakh products. “Of the over 30,000 government agencies registered, 18,000 of them are transacting,” Chauhan said. The platform has also been nominated for World Summit on the Information Society, an UN initiative.
The range of services offered includes cleaning and sanitation, cloud, language translation, drinking water, pest control and vehicle hiring. It recently added professional hiring service for hiring consultants.
Chauhan said, “The idea is to further refine our offering in procuring. For professional service, we have started with IT support services and will slowly expand. We are also careful about listing as government agencies are required procure from the vendors and services we have listed.”
However, Chauhan says adoption and capacity building is still a challenge, especially from government buyers. “We have entered into MoUs with States and have training programmes,” she added.
Apart from improving products and services, the government is also working to refine the technology and data analytics aspect. A fraud detection platform to detect collusion in procurement process is also in the pipeline. This is being done in partnership with the Competition Commission of India.
Chauhan said, “We are also working on payment solutions with banks. We are working with them to see if we can do away with paper-based transaction such as use of challans and pushing them to come online.”
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