Procurement through GeM may reach Rs 40,000 cr by fiscal-end: Official

Following expansion of product categories in the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), procurement through the portal is expected to reach Rs 40,000 crore by the end of current financial year, an official said on Wednesday.

"In the last two years of operation of the GeM portal, the total size of procurement in value terms was about Rs 11,000 crore. We are trying to reach Rs 40,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal," GeM Additional CEO A.K. Kamra said here.

The online national public procurement portal was launched in August 2016 to facilitate online procurement of common use goods and services required by various government departments, organisation and public sector units.

The objective was to cut down the delays and transaction cost and bring transparency in the procurement process, he said.

Kamra said now there are 1,900 different product categories and over 4 lakh products available in the portal.

He also said a transaction fee of 0.5 per cent to the sellers was introduced very recently.

As many as 25 states signed memorandums of understanding with the GeM to procure products from the portal, Kamra said at the MSME Conference organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

As per the public procurement policy, 358 product categories have been reserved for small and medium enterprises, he said, adding that over 44 lakh units have registered with the portal.

"We are trying to bring all the product categories reserved for the SMEs in the portal. Some of them have already been included. We have requested the Ministry of MSMEs to provide specifications of the reserved product categories," he added.

--IANS

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