Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal should be expeditiously integrated with the Railway e-procurement system to put in place a Unified Procurement System for buyers that will result in substantial savings for the exchequer.

“The pilot bidding of Railways buyers through integrated system is expected to commence by August end. About ₹50,000 crore worth of annual procurement may be done by the Railways on GeM post the above integration,” according to a press statement issued by the Commerce & Industry Ministry.

The Minister, while interacting with GeM officials on Tuesday, said that this will also pave the way for big-ticket procurements by the petroleum and steel sectors.

Goyal said that GeM should expand include more participants in its portal for public procurement of both products and services. He said that it should not only evolve as a one-stop shop for the requirement of all Central and State government offices as well as their PSUs, but also provide opportunities to MSMEs to showcase their products.

GeM’s order value reached ₹38,620 crore in 2020-21. There are over 52,000 buyers and over 18.75 lakh sellers registered on the portal, dealing in 16,332 product catalogs and 187 service catalogs, per government calculations.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW