The government’s procurement portal, GeM (Government e Marketplace) is looking to encourage more and more start-ups and small and micro enterprises to list themselves as sellers. Since the platform’s inception, almost 23,000 start-ups have come onboard , Ajit Chavan, Additional CEO, GeM said in his address at the Start-up Mahakumbh event.
“GeM portal has been one of the earliest successful experiment of the government of India in the digital landscape. From just about ₹422 crore in 2016, we expect to cross ₹4-lakh crore-mark in terms of GMV (gross merchandise value) this year. We have 1.5 lakh buyers across the three tiers of the government-Central, State and local governments. We have a base of 21 lakh sellers which includes a large chunk of small and micro enterprises, underserved seller groups such as women and SC and ST entreprenuers among others “ Chavan stated.
Encouraging start-ups to leverage on the opportunities offered by the public procurement portal, he said, “Since inception, 23,000 DPIIT-recognised start-ups have onboarded as sellers on the portal. Just last year, start-ups fulfilled 84,000 orders worth ₹9,725 crore on the GeM portal. Start-ups represent innovation, are tech-driven and are led by young talent bringing disruptive interventions. We recognise that they have specific requirements and face challenges in terms of market access and need reduced compliance costs and regulatory overhangs.”
Stating that the GeM portal offers easy market linkages to start-ups exempting them from certain requirements to list as sellers, Chavan said that GeM will soon be launching a revamped mobile-based lending platform GeM Sahay 2.0. This initiative endeavours to offer collateral free loans of up to ₹10 lakh to start-ups and entreprenuers at interest rates of upto 10 per cent and will be approved within ten minutes.
He also urged start-ups to leverge on GeM’s ‘Start-up Runway’ initiative , which gives start-ups direct visibility with the buyers of the public procurement portal.