00:00Today we are joined by Meher Kumar Ji who is the CEO of Government A Marketplace and
00:04we are going to discuss the 10 year journey of GEM Portal.
00:07So welcome to UTA Bharat.
00:09Thank you so much.
00:10First I would like to know from you that how was this journey, how do you see this and
00:14what are the biggest achievement or we can say milestone of this journey.
00:20This journey started with a modest beginning in 2016 but the idea was really very innovative
00:27and transformative.
00:29We started with the business of close to 422 crore in the first year and today we have
00:36achieved a business of 20 lakh crore.
00:41The idea was simple that it has to be a very very easy to do kind of public procurement system.
00:51It should be inclusive, it should be transparent and it should be efficient.
00:55These were the three mantras on which we started our journey and what we noticed that the way
01:04we structured this digital platform it has really helped to create a very very inclusive
01:12platform.
01:13So that has been the signature contribution of the Government A Marketplace of driving inclusive
01:20growth in the nation.
01:21So if we talk about how things changed in the Government Procurement, earlier it used to
01:26be a traditional tendering system and now things are completely online.
01:31have we ever quantified what kind of saving and in which manner we have made with this new
01:37initiative?
01:38Yes, yes.
01:40I mean it was a huge change from the earlier manual system where I mean the tenders were
01:47actually published through newspapers or they were printed documents.
01:53Recently also IIT Delhi has done a study of the last three years procurement done through the
01:59Government A Marketplace and they have come out with the number of close to 75,000 odd crore
02:08rupees of saving through the public procurement system.
02:10It was always a challenge for a small SME sector businessman to reach to the big Government Procure system.
02:20But Jim has made this smooth and transparent too.
02:24So if they speak to you, how do you see their feelings and the change in their behaviour A, B,
02:31has they changed themselves or the way they were doing business earlier?
02:35I mean credit obviously goes to the ecosystem, the sellers and the buyers.
02:41Because one part is that you create a platform but at the same time if the adoption is not
02:47very high, I mean you can still have a very muted kind of growth.
02:51But the way the sellers and the buyers responded, that has given the strength to the platform.
02:59And especially in a country like India where we know that, I mean any digitisation, public latches
03:06onto the digital initiative, be it the UPI, be it the other initiatives which have been taken by the government.
03:12So here also the sellers, especially when we did the online registration and online offer, I mean they can upload
03:21their offerings online.
03:22So everything online, they really got excited and their participation has been tremendous.
03:28Right.
03:28So sir, one more thing like the MSME participation, women's participation is also there.
03:34So can we quantify like which state is procuring how much, is there any kind of number, which state are
03:41benefiting with this more,
03:42both in terms of buyers and the seller?
03:44So firstly you see, I mean we are doing, the procurement is done by the central government entities also and
03:51the central public sector undertaking also.
03:54Along with that states are also doing.
03:56I mean some of the states who are basically ahead of others, if I can name a few of them.
04:02So especially I would like to mention the government of Uttar Pradesh.
04:05It has really done a very good job, very excellent job on the government marketplace.
04:11Then we have Gujarat, then we have Maharashtra, Delhi.
04:14So these are some of the states who have really come very forthright and they have really exploited the system
04:20to the best of their benefit.
04:23Given the down the line, the 10 year journey, you might have seen so many challenges in terms of technology
04:29as well.
04:29So as we are in today in the kind of AI age, so how you people are using using AI
04:35and is there any challenges faced by you people using AI?
04:38You see firstly the the architecture of the platform based on what Honorable Prime Minister said that it has to
04:46be a trust-based platform.
04:48So we created a trust-based platform.
04:50Now running a trust-based platform, the fundamental underlying theme of that is that everybody will maintain the trust.
04:57So we that's why we I mean keep a watch on the buyer and selling behavior on the portal.
05:05So that's why we started using technology to nudge the buyers and sellers to behave so that marketplace sanity is
05:14maintained and people get value for money through the public procurement and technology has really helped in that.
05:21We came out with the when we started with the portal we came out with a basic analytics layer subsequently
05:29as the technology evolved we started using AI ML use cases to understand the suspected cases of behavior which needs
05:37to be flagged.
05:38So technology per se has given us that kind of insight that kind of bandwidth through which we have been
05:48able to exploit what are the various I mean I'll say the challenges we have been able to overcome them
05:56because challenges are there any technology any initiative you do and public procurement we have certain challenges which technology has
06:06really helped.
06:06So government is also looking for the vision 2047 for the developed India so if we talk about the gym
06:12particularly how you people are doing things or changing your things if we talk about the next 5 or 10
06:19years what new we can expect from the gym?
06:23Firstly we feel that the scale which we have reached there is still room for I mean growing more like
06:32for example we are there in states we would like to do more onboarding and success of the urban local
06:41bodies gram panchayats and reaching out to these sellers which have not been able to come to our portal.
06:49So first is that the inclusivity because that is where I mean the heart of Bharat lies so we would
06:57like to reach nook and corner of the country so that sellers from every part of the geography every part
07:03of the vertical gets an opportunity to come and do business with the government.
07:08So that is on the scale part secondly I mean what we have done I mean since we have developed
07:15the basic infrastructure of digital platform we would like to make it very easy smart and intelligent so that I
07:26mean the issues which right now maybe the sellers are facing on onboarding on successful participation that can be eliminated
07:36that can be overcome.
07:38One question is there in my mind since the inception of the gym when will it be open for common
07:44people are there any plans or the things are still pipeline in pipeline as they are in the past 10
07:52years.
07:52You see right now I mean we are concentrating on the government buying and we would like to continue to
08:01strengthen ourselves on the government buying vertical because you know in a country like India we spend close to 10
08:08to 20 percent of the GDP on public procurement.
08:12We would like to strengthen ourselves so that we can cement that gap which is still there on the public
08:18procurement landscape.
08:20Obviously I mean as and when the stakeholder decision happens that we can open up for the public we will
08:26take that call but right now we are concentrating on our core domain of public procurement.
08:31So last question as you people are getting so many feedbacks from the government side as well as the sellers.
08:37So if any message would like to give to the sellers particularly to manufacture their product in a certain way
08:44that the rejection could be minimized.
08:46You see firstly they I mean we have created a trust based platform and secondly we have created a portal
08:58which is completely brand agnostic.
09:00So they should not worry about branding or any kind of investment on those kind of things.
09:07They should concentrate on bringing out quality products because this is the platform which neutralizes the advantage any brand can
09:17have.
09:17So if your product is nice and if it is really well made obviously it will sell.
09:22Right.
09:23Thank you so much sir for taking our time for ETBharat.
09:26So if the product is quality there will be buyer for them.
09:30With cameraman Sandeep, Saurabh Shukla, ETBharat, Telly.
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