Two new features in works for Government e-Marketplace | Latest News India

State-run Government e-Marketplace (GeM), which is set to cross ₹6 lakh crore sales volume in 2024-25 to become world’s top e-commerce portal for public procurement ahead of Korea ON-line E-Procurement System (KONEPS), plans to launch two new features within the first 100-days of the NDA government–an online bidding system for civil works and job opportunities for 5,000 ‘GeM SAHAYAKs’, officials said.

As compared to ₹4 lakh crore gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2023-24, the current GMV has already crossed ₹1.65 lakh crore as on date, GeM chief executive officer Prashant Kumar Singh said. In the first quarter of the current financial year, procurement of goods and services through the GeM crossed ₹1,24,761 crores, including ₹80,502 crore for services (as compared to ₹18,557 crore in Q1 of 2023-24).

“Driven by services, we expect to close the current financial year at around ₹6 lakh crores. “At this pace, we would soon become the world’s largest online public procurement platform,” he added. GeM has already surpassed Singapore’s GeBIZ to become the second largest.

GeM is confident of surpassing KONEPS because it plans to launch civil works contracts on its platform soon. While GeM currently offers goods and services on its portal, KONEPS does all three – goods, services and work contracts. The matter will require the cabinet’s approvel, one government official aware of the development said requesting anonymity.

Singh confirmed the development. “We are consulting stakeholders on this. “After that we will send the proposal to the government (the commerce ministry) to take it forward,” he said.

While both public and private sector companies, including micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) can sell their products and services through GeM, the buyers can only be government entities, including gram panchayats and public sector firms. It is mandatory for government entities to procure goods and services from the portal. GeM has over 150,000 government buyers and over 6.2 million sellers offering a wide range of goods and services, including automobiles, computers, office furniture, logistics services, waste management, and IT services.

“The addition of civil works in GeM would expand its scope, enhance transparency in the award of public civil contracts, eliminate possibilities of corruption and fix responsibilities for delays in completion of public projects,” the official mentioned above said. A start will be made with, small civil works such as construction of government buildings, pavements, drainage system, and other public utilities and the same would be optional, he said. Globally, 90% of total public procurement includes work contracts, he added.

Singh said the portal is launching an initiative to train and certify ‘GeM Sahayaks’ to provide expertise to buyers and sellers. “GeM Sahayaks will offer their services to potential and existing users in navigating processes in the portal and help them in proper cataloguing to enhance the value proposition for them. “Initially, we may train 5,000 people who would be stationed at key pin codes of the country. Later their numbers could be doubled,” Singh said.