The public procurement platform of the government, Government eMarketplace (GeM) has registered a 7.7x growth in the transaction value of services availed from MSME and other sellers on the platform between financial year 2020-21 and 2022-23.

According to a release by the commerce ministry, the transaction value for services procured has increased from Rs. 8,505 crore in FY21 to Rs. 65,957 crore in FY23 and "exhibited a staggering increase in the overall contribution to GeM Gross Merchandise Value or the total order value from 23 per cent in FY 21-22 to nearly 47 per cent in the current financial year", the ministry said.

Hailing the growth, commerce minister Piyush Goyal posted on X, "GeM: A commitment to efficiency, transparency & inclusivity! With remarkable growth in service procurement, @GeM_India marks another stellar achievement".

According to the release, among the services procured, approximately 40,000 contracts were placed for hiring manpower services in FY23, with total contract value exceeding Rs. 14,000 crore. Similarly, for other services such as vehicle hiring services, 30,000 contracts with contract value over Rs. 2,900 crore were placed in FY23.

Moreover, Coal India had placed around 175 orders worth Rs. 24,558 crore for handling, transport and other mining activities while Gujarat government placed an order for group mediclaim insurance worth Rs. 2,302 crore under Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana to provide health insurance cover to nearly 62 lakh families.

Other than this, services such as chartered aircraft, air international logistics services, drone as a service (DaaS) for surveying and aerial mapping, leasing of high-value medical equipment, cyber security services, and hiring of virtual reality services for events, were availed from the platform.

GeM, which has 311 service categories, also provided high-value service bids such as hiring, operations, and management of ATMs, energy audit services, GIS surveys including drone mapping, etc.