TCS to develop advanced version of GeM; wins contract for running, maintaining the portal

Ease of doing business for MSMEs: India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won the contract for running and maintaining the government’s portal for public procurement Government e-Marketplace (GeM), said Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal. The government had earlier this year invited bids for developing an advanced version of the portal. Among the bids, TCS and Gurugram-based fintech platform Intellect Design Arena had reportedly emerged as top bidders.

Back in 2017, Intellect Design Arena and software company Infibeam were awarded the contract to design, develop and maintain the GeM portal.

Goyal also highlighted the 10x growth in public procurement on GeM in the last three years. Launched in August 2016, the portal crossed Rs 4 lakh crore in cumulative gross merchandise value (GMV) in April this year. While the portal took 1,771 days to reach Rs 1 lakh crore in GMV since its launch, the number of days taken to add another Rs 1 lakh crore GMV and cumulatively reach Rs 2 lakh crore was reduced by over 5.5x to 316 days. In comparison, Rs 3 lakh crore GMV was achieved in 234 days and Rs 4 lakh crore in 123 days.

As on March 31, 2023, GeM had recorded Rs 2 lakh crore GMV in FY23 and as of June 28, as per GeM data, the cumulative GMV stood at Rs 4.43 lakh crore with 1.57 crore orders processed so far.

Congratulating GeM performers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also tweeted on Wednesday, “Congratulations to @GeM_India ‘s top performers for their remarkable contributions. Such efforts strengthen India’s journey towards prosperity and self-reliance.”

Meanwhile, Goyal said that a new system is being developed at GeM, which will be more contemporary and modern with more elements for ease of operations. The minister added that data analytics will be offered in the new system to help the buyers and sellers in making decisions related to procurement.

GeM currently caters to the procurement needs of over 69,000 government buyer organisations. The portal features over 11,800 product categories as well as over 280 service categories. Based on various studies, the minimum savings on the platform are about 10 per cent which translates into a savings of around Rs 40,000 crore worth of public money, the commerce ministry said in a statement.