Govt's e-marketplace (GeM) to touch $25 billion in next three years
GeM (Government e-Marketplace), through which the government buys goods and services for the country's consumption, aims to record more transactions than e-commerce giants Amazon India and Flipkart put together. The government’s public procurement website, GeM has recorded transactions worth $1.5 billion (about 10,000 cr.) at present on its platform, and aims to raise this figure to $25 billion in three years and $100 billion in 7-8 years, says Minister of Commerce and Industry, Suresh Prabhu. Amazon India and Flipkart, including Myntra, on the other hand record online transactions of about $12 billion at present.
The National Mission on GeM was launched by Minister Suresh Prabhu at The Ashok Hotel in New Delhi. This nationwide drive begins from 6th September and will go on till 17th October 2018. During the 6 weeks special drive, the mission will be launched at state headquarters by Chief Ministers and will cover important sectors and flagship programmes, launch of IEC campaign along with training on usage of GeM for buyers and sellers, buyer registration drive to on-board government agencies and vendor registration drive with special focus on MSMEs.
"GeM will be a very valuable possession for the government. If we list it, we don’t know how much value we will get,” the Minister said. “Making profit is not the mandate of GeM as it is registered as a Section 8 company. However, in future, if the government so wishes it has to change the nature of the company into a for-profit one."....Read More
