GeM a standout platform globally, says government portal's CEO Mihir Kumar

New Delhi [India], June 9 : The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) has emerged as a standout platform across the world, matching international standards through its digital architecture and functional capabilities, according to Mihir Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of the portal.
Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of a press conference detailing the key achievements, initiatives, and reforms of marketplace, he emphasized that technological infrastructure serves as the proper metric for evaluating global competitiveness.
"The right yardstick to compare will be the digital platform, the strength of the platform, the functionalities in the platform. That way, I can say that we match everyone. We are a standout platform across the globe," Kumar said.
Addressing how the portal compares to international equivalents, Kumar noted that absolute transaction volumes remain tied to national public procurement budgets, which vary between developing and developed economies.
"You see, so far as the yardstick of the volume of business is concerned, obviously that depends on how much public procurement is happening in a country. So, I mean, that will be not an apple to apple comparison in the sense. Developed countries' public procurement budget will be very high compared to our country at this stage of time," Kumar said.
The CEO stated that the platform has fundamentally altered the public procurement landscape in the country since its inception.
Reflecting on the portal's trajectory, Kumar highlighted the transition from its initial operational scale to its current fiscal volume. The public procurement portal recorded a gross merchandise value exceeding Rs 5 lakh crore in the last financial year.
"You see, the government E-market place started in 2016. So it has been almost 10 years of journey. And we started with a modest beginning of Rs 422 crore business in the first year, from that time to more than Rs 5 lakh crore in the last financial year. That is a very, very long journey. That is one part of it. That is the gross merchandise value," Kumar said.
The growth in transaction volume corresponds with a substantial increase in the total number of processed procurement orders.
Kumar stated, "If we look at the numbers also, now on our portal, from the time we started, we had close to 6,000 orders. Now we have 74 lakh orders through our portal."
He highlighted that the platform also registered an increase in institutional market access for small enterprises, startups, and women entrepreneurs.
"The number of orders have increased, the business has increased, at the same time empowerment has happened. For example, the government's idea is that 25% of business should go to micro and small enterprises. On our portal, it's close to 45%," Kumar said. "And women entrepreneurs, they have been empowered. They have been able to do business to the tune of Rs 80,000 odd crore. They started with Rs 70 crore. Now they are doing more than Rs 80,000 crore."
The marketplace similarly expanded commercial opportunities for newly established businesses over the last decade.
Kumar stated, "The startups, they started with a business of Rs 2 crore. Now they are doing more than Rs 50,000 crore of business. So it's a phenomenal kind of empowerment of the inclusive category, inclusive uh sellers has happened."
On the purchasing side, the CEO noted improvements in systemic transparency, seller onboarding, and fiscal efficiency.
"On the buyer side, obviously transparency has come up. It has really helped the buyers to get more and more sellers. The price discovery mechanism has been strengthened. So the savings to the exchequer is also happening. So buyers are also happy. So I can say 2016 was a watershed year in the public procurement landscape in this country, courtesy to GeM," Kumar said.
To protect the integrity of transactions, the platform currently deploys advanced technological tools to monitor user activity and enforce institutional trust.
Kumar stated, "You see, as I always often say that ours is a trust-based platform, to maintain the trust on the portal, we see that the buyer and sellers behave the way one is supposed to behave."
"So all these AIML tools help us to identify the cases where there is abnormality in behavior of the buyer and seller. And we try to flag that to the sellers and to the buyers. And we try to see that those kind of abnormalities are addressed through the AIML use cases," Kumar added.