Gujarat has become the state with the second highest number of sellers on Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal, overtaking Uttar Pradesh.
Till last month, Maharashtra had 1.73 lakh sellers, the highest, registered with GeM. It was followed by UP with 64,000 sellers.
‘However, thanks to the success of a recent drive to bring more sellers of Gujarat on board, the number of sellers of Gujarat on board GeM went past 74,000. In the process, Gujarat overtook UP and become the state with the second highest number of sellers registered on GeM portal,’ Sagar Soni, GeM’s regional business facilitator for Gujarat state told The Indian Express on the sidelines of an event organised GeM for sharing success stories of suppliers in Rajkot Wednesday.
GeM is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) functioning under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Commerce. GeM is tasked with facilitating procurement of material and services by various departments of the central and state governments as well as public sector undertakings (PSUs) in a transparent manner and at competitive prices by standardising product and service specifications and expanding the sourcing network by taking the task online.
In turn, it is also aimed at providing access to a pan-India market to manufacturers, traders and service-providers virtually free of cost.Since its launch, GeM has taken on board 43 lakh sellers and logged gross merchandise value (GMV) worth Rs3.04 crore.
‘Gujarat accounts for Rs 11,400 crore worth of GMV. After UP’s Rs 25,000 crore worth of procurement, Gujarat’s is the second largest,’ Soni further said, adding, ‘All state governments have signed MoUs with GeM and are on board the platform. However, not every state government is procuring every good and service through the GeM platform while some, like Gujarat, are making their 100 per cent procurements through this portal.’
Registration by sellers on GeM portal is free and can now be done through grahak seva kendras (common service centres) of state governments.
Once registered on the platform, a seller gets an opportunity to sell his or her products to the government through competitive bidding done online and without having to pay tender fees.
‘For example, JK Machine Tools Private Limited, a Rajkot based firm which manufactures small machines, had an annual turnover of Rs2 crore when it was incorporated in year 2016. Its business had grown 10 fold after joining GeM and its annual turnover now stands at Rs 20 crore,’ Kishor Mori, general manager of Gujarat government’s District Industries Centre (DIC) in Rajkot said.
The DIC general manager is ex-officio district nodal officer of GeM.
Soni added that Gujarat government recently opted GeM portal for empanelling insurance company for its flagship health insurance scheme Mukhya Mantri Amrut (MA) by placing Rs1120 crore worth of service contract on the platform.