Central procurement portal has done Rs 40,000 cr transactions

New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) The government electronic marketplace GeM has reported transactions worth Rs 40,000 crore, Expenditure Secretary T.V. Somanathan said on Monday.

GeM is a government e-market place hosted by the Commerce Ministry where common user goods and services can be procured.

The government has taken a number of steps for transparency in public procurement activity.

Procurement of all goods and services is done by the government Ministries and Departments, Public Sector Undertakings and other apex autonomous bodies of the Centre only through GeM.

As per Ministry data, currently, 3.24 lakh vendors are registered on this platform.

"Public procurement worth Rs 40,000 crore has taken place through the government's online marketplace GeM. The efficiency of procurement makes a big difference to the fiscal discipline of government. GeM, has electronic bids of 1,00,000 tenders - including state government tenders. And we have (Rs) 18-19 lakh crore per annum, of tendering on Central Public Procurement Portal (CPPP)," Somanathan said at the Global Procurement Summit 2020.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her 2020-21 Budget speech, said the government was looking to increase the turnover of the GeM portal to Rs 3 lakh crore.

Somanathan said global government procurement economy is estimated at $10 trillion in value; and in most countries, including India, it constitutes more than one-fifth of the GDP taking into account Central, state government and PSUs.

He however, added Public Private Partnerships (PPP) has not taken off in a big way in India.

"One of the problems we contin ue to face in many of the PPPs is how do we deal with unanticipated risks and changes that are not specifically provided for in contracts and so far India has not been successful in using arbitration as a means of quick resoluti on of contract disputes."