GeM in 2020: 40k new sellers joined Amazon of govt buying per month; this many new categories added

Technology for MSMEs: As 2020 draws to a close, the Modi government’s business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce portal Government eMarketplace (GeM) has been able to add 40,212 new sellers on an average per month this year. Also, 486 new product categories were added to the GeM portal per month in 2020, according to data shared by the portal. Currently, there are 8,61,625 sellers and service providers listed on the marketplace out of which 3,47,401 are micro and small enterprises. Overall, there are more than 20,000 artisans and 1.2 lakh weavers registered on GeM, the marketplace said sharing data on Twitter. The public procurement platform had added more than 1 lakh sellers in November itself, registered under Udham Aadhaar under the Ministry of MSME.

“On GeM, several categories are focused around the agenda of ‘Inclusion’, that is why, we are providing digital access to SHGs, artisans, weavers, TRIFED products, startups & MSMEs to do business with the Govt. directly,” the marketplace tweeted. Overall, public procurement by government departments, CPSEs, and ministries from micro and small enterprises (MSEs) has increased by 3-4 per cent annually in the past few years. From 23.11 per cent in 2017-18, the buying went up to 26.32 per cent in 2018-19 followed by 30.95 per cent in 2019-20 and 33.56 per cent as of December 2, according to MSME Sambandh portal.

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GeM platform was introduced by the Modi government on August 9, 2016, to boost efficiency and transparency in the public procurement process and for small businesses to leverage digital selling of goods and services. According to Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal last month, the number of startups registered on the GeM portal also went up 70 per cent from 4,297 as of November 1, 2019, to 7,315 as of November 1, 2020.

The growth came amid the government, in June, urging sellers on GeM to declare the ‘country of origin’ for products sold on the portal. The government had later also asked other e-commerce businesses such as Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket, Grofers, etc., to update the ‘country of origin’ for existing and new products. The move came days after the border clash between Indian and Chinese armed forces even as the government intended to curb imports of sub-standard and cheap Chinese goods flooding Indian markets.