Goods, services procurement on Tender portal may touch Rs 1 lakh cr in FY22

Goods, services procurement on Tender portal may touch Rs 1 lakh cr in FY22

Orders placed on the Tender rose from ₹23,000 crore in FY20 to ₹37,000 crore in FY21, at CAGR of 93% from 2016

The Government Marketplace (Tender) has set a target to almost triple its order book in FY22 to 1 trillion by merging its operations with the Integrated Material Management System and the Indian Railway Electronic Procurement System (IRePS).

Orders placed on the government-run online marketplace rose from 23,000 crore in FY20 to 37,000 crore in FY21, clocking a compounded annual growth rate of 93% since the portal was launched in August 2016. 

“This shows acceptability of the buyers of both the state and central government organizations and their confidence on the usability of the portal," Talleen Kumar, chief executive officer, Tender, said.

Kumar said the portal has already implemented the policy statement of the FY21 Budget announcement for a unified procurement system. “We have integrated with the central public procurement portal to have a single user experience and now integrating with the Indian railways electronic procurement system so that railways can seamlessly place their bids on the Tender. We will complete the integration process by the end of March."

“Tender is moving ahead for creating a unified procurement system in the country for providing a single platform for procurement of goods, services and works. It offers a great opportunity for medium, small and micro enterprises. 3.24 lakh vendors are already on this platform. It is proposed to take its turnover to 3 trillion," finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in her budget speech.

Commerce secretary Anup Wadhawan said on Wednesday that the idea is to make everything the government requires available on the Tender. “That is where we are heading. Because some items are specialty items and require technical evaluation. No matter how complex it is with many functionalities, the items should be on the Tender platform."

The Tender helps central and state government departments to achieve the best value for taxpayers’ money by carrying out efficient public procurement using tools such as e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation. The earlier system involved physical invitation of bids, bid evaluation and finalization of the winning bid under the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals, a century-old government procurement arm.