Purchases of goods and services through the government e-marketplace (GeM) will almost double in the current fiscal from a year before to over Rs 2 trillion, GeM chief executive PK Singh said. GeM had recorded a turnover of Rs 106,647 crore in FY22. Singh said the portal has witnessed consistent growth in the buyer and seller ecosystem, with more than 53,000 buyers and over 4.5 million sellers. As many as 10 million transactions have been completed so far. He was speaking at the MSME Business Conclave of .com.
The GeM portal was launched in August 2016, as the Centre wanted to improve transparency in purchases of various goods and services by all the central government ministries, departments and public-sector firms and state governments, apart from providing a new-age platform for official procurement. While buyers are official entities, sellers — ranging from small business to large companies — are from both public and private sectors.
In order to ensure timely payments to sellers, most of whom are MSMEs, GeM, in collaboration with the ministry of finance, is going to impose a “penal interest” on errant buyers, Singh said. A buyer who delays payments by more than 10 days will be charged a 1% penal interest per month. He will also have to answer why the payment was delayed.