New Delhi: Dr. Anup Wadhawan, Secretary of Department of Commerce, Government of India today said that Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is providing increasing market access to seller groups like MSEs, Women SHGs, Startups reinforcing the Make in India Initiative and Govt of India’s policy to promote local MSEs.

While addressing press conference that presently GeM has over 6,90,000 MSE sellers and service providers onboard contributing  over 56% of the total order value on GeM, which is a testament to GeM’s success in not only onboarding but also engaging with the MSEs to help them participate in public procurement. The number of MSEs registered on the GeM platform has increased by over 62% since the last FY (2019-20). And this is a tremendous achievement- considering that there were only around 3000 MSMEs in FY 2016-17.

In Beginning of August 2017 ,GeM has facilitated 67.27 lakh orders worth 111,113 Crores from 18.85 lakh registered sellers and service providers for 52,275 Govt buyers. Most importantly, 6,95,432 MSE sellers and service providers have fulfilled 56.13 percent of the total order value on GeM.

As per the new MSME policy, MSME Ministry launched a new Udyam Registration Scheme for all MSME businesses. The new Udyam form has a provision to take consent from businesses for auto-registration on the GeM portal. In order to further smoothen the seller registration process for MSEs on the portal, GeM has operationalized API integration with Udyam Registration databases, and details of MSMEs, who have given their consent to share their details with GeM, are being auto imported on GeM for creation of their seller profile and notification. As of 31st May 2021, 18,75,427 vendors are registered on GeM out of which 6,98,178 are MSEs and the share of procurement from MSEs on the portal is approx. 57 percent.

Providing online market access to under-served seller groups has reinforced the “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, “Vocal for Local”, “Make in India” initiative and Govt of India’s policy to promote local MSEs. The GeM platform has ensured effective and seamless implementation of the Make in India policy and the Public Procurement Policy for Preference to Micro and Small Enterprises. In order to provide an impetus to the Make in India initiative as part of the vision of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat”, and to promote local products through the “Vocal for Local” initiative, the Government has made it mandatory for all sellers on GeM to list the Country of Origin while registering new products.

At present there are 9,980 Startups registered on GeM and 87 of these Startups have listed their innovative products on Startup Runway.

GeM is collaborating with the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT), a non-profit tech think tank’s volunteer team for the implementation of the GeM- SAHAY project, which has been tailored to meet the specific needs of MSMEs on the GeM platform.  Sellers applying for the loan facility will experience a seamless end to end digital experience with a mobile application.

Through the ‘GeM SAHAY’ app, loan disbursement will be instantaneous, instead of the conventional in-principle approval of loan that may very often not culminate in an actual disbursal. This facility will provide GeM sellers who are sole proprietors, with the best loan offers from top lenders in the country including public sector banks, private banks and NBFCs.

The GeM SAHAY platform is ‘lender agnostic’, allowing for any lender, duly regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, to participate and provide capital and smart collection accounts to the Sellers on GeM. 

The Saras Collection is a dedicated portal showcasing daily utility products made by self-help groups [SHG] was developed in collaboration with Ministry of Rural Development and launched on 04th May 2020.  Presently, there are more than 3,000 SHGs registered sellers on GeM and have listed approximately 1,000 products on the portal.

A unique initiative of the National Bamboo Mission and GeM, “The Green Gold Collection” showcases a range of exquisitely handcrafted bamboo and bamboo products, handicrafts, disposals and daily utility products, and aims to provide bamboo artisans, weavers and entrepreneurs in rural areas with market access to Government buyers. Approximately more than 1,200 sellers have successfully registered and listed their products on the portal. This initiative seeks to promote the adoption and use of bamboo products among Govt buyers and usher a sustainable rural economy for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.

GeM has dedicated outreach and training teams that provide both offline and online needs-based training and webinars to empower all sellers across the country, in their language and customized to their unique contexts. GeM also has a dedicated online Learning Management System (LMS) Portal that has been developed where all training resources on using the platform have been uploaded. The chatbot “GeMmy” provides an array of services like a virtual assistant while onboarding any type of seller onto the platform for intuitive contextual assistance