GeM: MSE seller base on Amazon of govt buying crosses 1.5 lakh mark; share in order value nears 60%

Technology for MSMEs: The number of micro and small enterprise (MSE) sellers on the public procurement portal – Government e-Marketplace (GeM) has crossed the 1.5 lakh mark – up 158 per cent from around 60,000 in November last year. On the other hand, MSEs’ contribution in the overall value of the orders placed on the portal so far stood at 57.50 per cent, according to the GeM data. However, at 1,55,112, the share of MSE seller base in the total base of 6.4 lakh sellers remained only 24 per cent, the data, which is updated in real-time on the portal, showed while filing this report. As of November 3, 2020, over 49.5 lakh orders have been placed on the portal with a transaction value of Rs 69,951 crore.

The government had launched the GeM portal on August 9, 2016, to enhance speed and transparency in the public procurement process for micro and small sellers also to benefit. Since then, 47,771 buyers including government organisations, central public sector units, departments, ministries, etc., have been onboarded on the platform with a mandate to procure a minimum of 25 per cent of their annual procurement target from MSEs.

Further, GeM had launched its chatbot service called GeMmy around May last year to ease the grievance resolution process for customers. According to its quarterly Quality Report for July-September 2020, GeMmy’s engagement in terms of unique users has almost doubled from the preceding quarter. The number went up from 10 lakh as of June to nearly 20 lakh as of September while the total number of queries also increased from 2.5 lakh to around 3.4 lakh during the said period.

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Overall, the public procurement from MSEs has increased over the years though marginally by 3-4 per cent year-on-year. From 23.11 per cent in 2017-18, the buying went up to 26.32 per cent in 2018-19, 30.95 per cent in 2019-20 and 32.48 per cent till date, data from MSME Sambandh portal showed. GeM had recently invited suggestions from sellers for new categories in order to crowdsource them. Currently, there are 9,976 product categories and 168 service categories including 15,93,262 products and 50,876 service offerings.