Govt. eMarketplace achieves annual procurement of 1 lakh crore

The Government eMarketplace has attained a annual procurement of 1 lakh crore in FY 22 as per the annual Economic Survey report, which was tabled by FM Nirmala Sitharaman in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. The growth was a 160 per cent increase compared to the last fiscal year.

The report said that the GeM has seen a lot of growth in Gross Merchandise Value GMV and is catching up with E-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart.

The government-backed portal for public procurement saw micro, small and medium enterprises contribute 57 per cent of the total business on GeM, while firms run by female entrepreneurs account for over 6 per cent of revenue.

The recent launch of the Open Network for Digital Commerce ONDC is a major role in democratizing digital payments, enabling interoperability and bringing down transaction costs, it read.

The portal has taken a host of steps to onboard products of self-help groups SHGs tribal communities, artisans, weavers, and MSMEs, according to the report. Initiatives taken by the Government to promote e-commerce include the Digital India program, Unified Payment Interface UPI GeM, etc. It added that the growth of e-commerce has been a major factor in the last few years.

It is important to note that while 4,06, 936 MSE sellers and service providers were registered on the GeM portal at the end of March 2021, this number grew to 7,41, 756 in a year, a growth of a whopping 82 per cent.

New e-commerce companies like Trell, Meesho, and Shop 101 are expanding in Tier 3 and 4 cities and are gaining popularity due to the rural market's untapped potential for strengthening consumption growth. The report said that the e-commerce industry is focused on local solutions to penetrate rural areas by strengthening the network of rural distributors and retailers and using local distribution centres as Pick Up Drop Off points to allow logistics companies to serve rural consumers.