A number that stops you cold: 1,400 per cent. That is how sharply Assam's purchases through the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) have climbed under Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, with total procurement now touching ₹2,659 crore — a milestone the Department of Commerce, Government of India has formally recognised.

What GeM is, and why the number matters

Launched in 2016, GeM is the Central government's answer to a chronic problem: discretionary, opaque public purchasing that historically benefited middlemen over genuine suppliers. The portal digitises the entire buy-sell chain — from indent to delivery — leaving an auditable trail that older rate-contract systems simply could not match. When a state's procurement on GeM jumps by more than fourteen times, it signals a structural shift, not a seasonal blip. For Assam, a state that has historically lagged in institutional digitisation, the scale of adoption represents a deliberate policy push by the Sarma government to route departmental spending through the platform. The recognition from the Department of Commerce adds a Central imprimatur to what has been a state-level drive.

Local businesses as the primary winners

Sarma was pointed about who benefits most, writing that 'the biggest beneficiaries? Assam's businessmen and women.' The framing matters. GeM's design explicitly favours registered small and medium vendors — local artisans, manufacturers, and service providers who previously had little visibility into government tenders dominated by larger, better-connected firms. By pushing departments to procure on the portal, the state government is, in theory, widening the supplier base and shrinking the space for back-channel deals. For Assam's business community — spanning Guwahati traders to district-level suppliers — access to a government buyer that is legally bound to transact on a transparent platform is a material change in operating conditions.

Assam inside India's broader e-procurement push

Assam's acceleration fits a wider pattern across the North-East. Since 2019, several states in the region have deepened GeM integration as part of cooperative federalism initiatives championed by the Centre under the Digital India umbrella. BJP-led state governments have been particularly active in publicising GeM milestones, using them as governance-efficiency benchmarks ahead of electoral cycles. The next test will be whether Assam moves to make GeM procurement mandatory across all departments — a step some states have taken — and whether the Department of Commerce's quarterly dashboards show the growth rate holding or accelerating into the next fiscal year. For now, the ₹2,659 crore figure is Assam's loudest argument that transparent procurement is no longer a policy aspiration — it is a measurable fact on the ground.