What began as a tentative digital experiment in government buying has grown into one of the world's largest public procurement platforms — and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta marked GeM's tenth anniversary on 10 August 2026 by putting that transformation in stark numerical relief.

Citing a leap from government purchases worth ₹422 crore a decade ago to over ₹1.55 lakh crore today, the Chief Minister framed the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) not merely as a procurement tool but as proof that technology can strip discretion and opacity out of public spending. The numbers, drawn from official figures, tell a story of scale that is difficult to ignore.

From DGS&D ledgers to a live digital marketplace

GeM was launched on 9 August 2016 to replace the older Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D) rate-contract system — a paper-heavy process long criticised for delays and limited competition. The new portal, operated under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, moved the entire cycle of vendor registration, product listing, price comparison, and order placement online, creating an auditable trail for every rupee spent.

A year later, the Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017 reinforced the platform's domestic-first orientation, mandating preference for Indian-made goods in government purchases. That policy scaffold gave GeM a strategic role beyond efficiency — it became a channel for the broader Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) agenda announced in May 2020.

Small sellers, women entrepreneurs, and startups at the counter

The most politically resonant part of Gupta's post is not the headline figure but what lies beneath it: lakhs of small businesses, women entrepreneurs, and startups now selling directly to government without a middleman. GeM's architecture — low entry barriers, standardised catalogues, and direct payment — was designed precisely to give micro-sellers access to the government's enormous buying power, a market historically dominated by established contractors.

This connects GeM to the wider post-2014 drive to digitise welfare and procurement — from Direct Benefit Transfers to GST compliance systems — each designed to reduce leakage and human discretion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Vocal for Local and Make in India campaigns, launched in September 2014, gave that drive a nationalist-economic framing that GeM operationalises at the transaction level.

What the next decade of GeM procurement could look like

The platform's trajectory now points toward services and works procurement — categories far more complex and higher-value than the goods and products that dominate current volumes. State-level adoption also remains uneven, and how quickly India's 28 states and 8 Union Territories deepen their GeM usage will determine whether the ₹1.55 lakh crore figure is a ceiling or a staging post.

A procurement portal that once processed ₹422 crore in a year has become infrastructure. The question GeM's second decade must answer is whether that infrastructure can hold as the ambition scales.