New Delhi, February 8 The public procurement platform, GeM, is upgrading its portal to handle higher data loads and will launch a future-ready platform this year, its CEO, Mihir Kumar, said.
With the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform completing nine years, GeM is re-platforming itself, which will be a "data lake" for a seamless buyer-seller interface, Kumar told PTI.
"We are discussing how we can make it easier to buy and sell on the GeM portal. How we can scale it up to handle data loads five or ten times greater than the current volume. We will be launching a future-ready platform this year," Kumar said.
The government e-Market (GeM) portal was launched on August 9, 2016, for online purchases of goods and services by all central government ministries and departments. Since its launch, over Rs 17.33 lakh crore worth of government procurement has taken place through it.
So far in the current fiscal, over Rs 4 lakh crore worth of goods and services have been procured from GeM, with over 50 lakh buying and selling orders by various ministries and departments.
In the last fiscal, 72 lakh orders valued at Rs 5.43 lakh crore were placed on the portal.
GeM has over 1.5 lakh government buyers and over 62 lakh sellers and service providers offering a wide range of products and services.
Currently, government departments, ministries, public sector units, state governments, and central armed police forces are allowed to conduct transactions through this portal.
The portal offers a wide range of products, from office stationery to vehicles. Automobile, computers, and office furniture are some of the major product categories.
Services, including transportation, helicopter services, logistics, waste management, and webcasting, are listed on the portal.