Ten years after a quiet pilot launch, India's Government e-Marketplace has grown into a procurement powerhouse — and the defence sector is now one of its biggest customers. Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal marked the platform's tenth anniversary on 10 August 2026 by highlighting a striking milestone: defence orders on GeM now account for nearly 15 per cent of all procurements on the portal.

From a pilot project to a defence procurement channel

GeM was launched on 9 August 2016 as a lean pilot under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, designed to cut out middlemen, reduce corruption, and throw open government buying to a wider vendor base. What began as a marketplace for routine office supplies has since expanded into complex, sensitive categories — including defence spares and equipment procured by the Ministry of Defence.

The 15 per cent share is a signal of how far that expansion has travelled. Defence procurement in India has historically been one of the most opaque and process-heavy segments of government spending. Moving a meaningful slice of it onto a transparent digital platform represents a structural shift, not just an administrative tweak.

Why the defence share on GeM matters

Every rupee routed through GeM is logged, audited, and traceable — a sharp contrast to legacy procurement channels. For the armed forces, that means faster vendor discovery, competitive pricing, and a documented trail for items ranging from logistics equipment to operational spares. For smaller vendors and Make in India manufacturers, it means a level playing field to bid on defence contracts that were once accessible only through long-established relationships.

The broader push to digitise public procurement has been consistent across the platform's decade-long run, but the defence segment's growth stands out. It suggests that even ministries with the most stringent security and quality requirements are finding GeM's architecture fit for purpose.

A decade of GeM — the scoreboard at ten

The #10YearsOfGeM marker arrives as the platform cements its place as a central pillar of India's public financial management. Minister Goyal has been a consistent champion of GeM's performance metrics, regularly flagging order volumes, vendor counts, and sectoral penetration as proof points for the government's governance-through-technology agenda.

With the defence share now approaching one-sixth of all GeM transactions, the next question is how much further that number can climb — and which other high-security procurement categories follow the same path onto the open marketplace.