The government’s public procurement initiative Government e-Marketplace (GeM) has registered over 1.44 lakh Udyam-verified women-led micro and small enterprises (MSEs) under its Womaniya programme launched in 2019.

Women MSE sellers have fulfilled over 14.76 lakh orders worth Rs 21,265 crore in gross merchandise value since 2019. 

Government e-Marketplace (GeM)

• Government e-Marketplace is a government-owned Section 8 company set up under the aegis of department of commerce for procurement of goods and services by central and state government organisations.

• Public procurement involves purchase of goods and services by governments with an aim to not only carry day-to-day tasks but to also create social and economic infrastructure.

• In India, public procurement accounts for roughly 20 per cent of the GDP and therefore, an efficiently run public procurement process is critical to the  economy.

• In order to improve transparency of decision-making in the public procurement process and to reduce malpractices, the Union government decided to set up an online marketplace for public procurement.

• Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is the national public procurement portal offering end to end solutions for all procurement needs of central and state government departments, PSUs, autonomous institutions and local bodies. 

• A special purpose vehicle (SPV) by the name of Government e-Marketplace (GeM SPV) was set up as the national public procurement portal.

• Since its commencement on August 9, 2016, GeM has transformed public procurement in the country by leveraging technology and making procurement contactless, paperless, and cashless.

• The platform reduces manual process inefficiencies and human interventions in procurement and enables increased coverage, access, and efficiency of faceless, standardised public procurement.

• It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate the government users, achieve the best value for their money.

• The purchases through GeM by government users have been authorised and made mandatory by the ministry of finance by adding a new Rule No.149 in the General Financial Rules, 2017.

• The portal provides a wide range of products from office stationery to vehicles. Automobiles, computers and office furniture are currently the top product categories. Services, including transportation, logistics, waste management, webcasting and analytical, are listed on the portal.

• The annual gross merchandise value from the GeM platform has increased from Rs 16,972 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 1,06,760 crore in 2021-22.

• About 61,851 government buyers and over 53 lakh sellers and service providers are registered on the GeM and they have listed more than 46 lakh products in over 10,000 products and 288 service categories.

Womaniya initiative

• Launched in 2019, the Womaniya initiative has sought to encourage the participation of women entrepreneurs and self-help groups (SHG) from the informal sector on the GeM portal and facilitate the sale of their products directly to various government buyers, sans intermediaries.

• The objective of Womaniya is to develop women entrepreneurship on the margins of society who face challenges in accessing public procurement markets, and work towards achieving gender inclusive economic growth of under-served seller groups such as such as women-owned and led MSEs, tribal entrepreneurs, startups, SHGs, artisan and weavers.

• GeM has taken a series of steps to develop and roll-out new business processes and functionalities for the promotion of Womaniya on GeM. 

Notable steps include:

• The development of dedicated product categories for the seamless listing of handicraft, handloom, khadi, and innovative products.

• Creation of GeM outlet stores to promote products from the under-served seller groups, marketplace  filters to distinguish products made by Womaniya and SC/ ST entrepreneurs and market icons to help government buyers identify products made exclusively by Womaniya.

• Launch of a new service vertical ‘Stitching and Tailoring Services’ on the portal to provide women seamstresses in urban and  rural areas with excellent hyper-local “access to markets” opportunities.

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