GeM the way forward towards developing India's marketplace.
GeM portal the e-procurement platform by Government of India launched in August 2016, for online procurement of goods and services by central and state government organizations. The initial version of GeM portal was developed and hosted by Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with technical support of National E-Governance Division (NeGD), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Later it was decided to hand over the GeM Portal for its development and maintenance to a Managed Service Provider (MSP) which would be led by Intellect design.
Since its inception, GeM has brought in the visibility and transparency in public procurement. The portal has transformed public procurement in India by driving its three pillars, namely, inclusion, usability and transparency and efficiency and cost savings. According to an independent assessment made by the World Bank, average savings for buyers in Government e Marketplace portal is about 9.75 percent on the median price. Recent data suggested that, it has undertaken about 76 lakh orders amounting to almost INR 1.4 lakh crore from around 28 lakh registered sellers and service providers for more than 54,600 government buyers with more than 57 percent of the total order by value from over 7, 24,517 small enterprises.
India’s e-marketplace, GeM, has won the prestigious CIPS Excellence in Procurement Award for the year 2021, for the ‘Best Use of Digital Technology’ leaving among several outstanding contenders like GEP, Jaguar Land Rover, Royal Dutch Shell, Vendigital and Shell.
This year, GeM was also shortlisted as a finalist in two additional categories—Public Procurement Project of the Year’ and ‘Best Initiative to Build a Diverse Supply Base’. Which shows the progress made by GeM, regarding the vision and goals for which it was envisioned. The platform aimed at increasing transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement along with providing inclusion and equal opportunity to micro, small and medium scale suppliers. It provides multiple modes of procurement, through direct purchases, e-biddings, bidding with reverse e-auction and direct reverse auction. The digital platform enables micro, small and medium scale suppliers, helps in efficient price discovery by the purchaser and allows the best practices to be implemented in the field of procurement, discouraging and eliminating bad practices which enables corruption.
The London-based Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) are one of the leading organisation around procurement globally. CIPS is a global not-for-profit organisation and professional body dedicated to promoting good practices in procurement and supply management, with a community across 150 countries. In just 5 years of its inception GeM’s global recognition of such order “is a testament to the power of a forward-looking technology-driven approach- leveraging cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence including machine learning, natural language processing, blockchain etc—in reinforcing users’ growing faith on the platform” as the CIPS Award citation read.
The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal also acknowledged the achievement and lauded GeM for bringing transparency and efficiency in public procurement in a press release by Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
As more and more governments internationally move towards e-procurement driven electronically without any physical contact for good governance, efficient delivery, competition and inclusiveness, the progress made by GeM helps India to take a lead among other countries in the field of electronic marketplace which is all set to dominate the marketing and procurement in coming years.