Transactions on GeM portal cross Rs 50,000 crore in first quarter

Provision of penal interest on delayed payments to start from July

The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal has crossed Rs. 50,000 crore in gross merchandise value (GMV) in this financial year so far, 1.5 times more than the same time a year ago, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Considering the pace of growth so far, the portal in the current financial year is expected to surpass the previous year’s transactions of Rs. 2 trillion, said GeM Chief Executive Officer P K Singh said on the sidelines of the CII-MSME Growth Summit here. The procurement of goods and services on the portal was Rs. 1.06 trillion in 2021-22.

At an event on Monday, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had expressed confidence that the GeM’s overall procurement for the 2022-23 would exceed Rs. 3 trillion.

Of the Rs. 50,000 crore worth of transactions, central public sector enterprises have made about 53 per cent, followed by central ministries (30 per cent) and state governments (17 per cent). 

Singh said a provision on the portal for penal interest on delayed payments to vendors by government ministries and departments will be operational in July.

In 2020, the government decided to levy a 1 per cent penalty on government departments and agencies for delayed payments to vendors selling goods on the GeM platform.

Goyal had said that data analytics would be offered in the new system to help the buyers and sellers in making decisions related to procurement. “India's largest software exporter, TCS, has won the contract for running and maintaining the government procurement portal GeM.”

The GeM portal was launched in 2016 for online purchases of goods and services by all the central government ministries and departments.

It has more than 63,000 government buyer organisations and over 6.2 million sellers and service providers offering a wide range of products and services.