NEW DELHI: Goods and services worth Rs 1 lakh crore are expected to be procured from the public procurement portal GeM in 2021-22, a senior official said on Wednesday.
The Government e-Market (GeM) portal was launched in August 2016 for online purchases of goods and services by all the central government ministries and departments.
GeM Chief Executive Officer Talleen Kumar said the order value in 2020-21 is projected at Rs 37,000 crore, up from Rs 22,896 crore in the previous year.
"With the onboarding of the Ministry of Railways getting completed by March 2021, GeM is headed towards an order value of Rs 1 lakh crore next fiscal," Kumar told reporters here.
He said as per estimates centre and states together buy goods and services worth Rs 5-7 lakh crore every year.
Kumar also said that the GeM is steadily moving towards the vision of a Unified Procurement System with an aim to consolidate all government procurement into a single, cohesive platform that can lead to economies of scale, more efficient price discovery, and sharing of best practices.
Further, he said high-end technologies like AI (artificial intelligence) and blockchain will be used to make the portal more dynamic.
Blockchain would be used for two applications - procurement of medicines in bulk and products with GI (geographical indicator) tag.
As per Budget 2020-21, the government is looking to increase the turnover of the public procurement portal to Rs 3 lakh crore, according to a commerce ministry's document on GeM.