Government e-Marketplace (GeM) commemorates the success of “SWAYATT”, an initiative to promote Start-ups, Women and Youth Advantage through e-Transactions on GeM

In New Delhi, a celebration was organised to mark the accomplishment of "SWAYATT," an effort to support start-ups, women, and youth advantage through electronic transactions on the government eMarketplace (GeM). Ms. Radha S Chauhan, Secretary, Ministry of Personnel and Training, and Mr. Sanjeev Gautam, Director SFAC (representing the Farmer Producer Organizations), attended the event as guests of honour. The Chief Guest was Ms. Mercy Epao, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Government of India.

More than 8.5 lakh Micro and Small Businesses (MSEs) have been registered on the GeM platform, and they have been able to receive approximately US$ 22.65 billion (Rs. 1.87 lakh crore) in commerce distributed across 68 lakh+ orders. Mr. P.K. Singh, CEO of GeM, informed the house about the progress made in achieving social and financial inclusion. Additionally, he stated that approximately 43K SC/ ST MSEs had delivered 1.35 lakh+ orders worth US$ 313.9 million (Rs 2,592 Crore) on the GeM platform, while more than 1.45 lakh women MSEs had completed 7.32 lakh orders totalling US$ 1.92 billion (Rs 15, 922 Crore).

GeM was commended by Mr. Sanjeev Gautam, Director of SFAC, for helping to enable more than 105 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to sell more than 200 Agri goods to the Government. In her speech as the honouree, Ms. Mercy Epao told the audience about the Ministry of MSME's various initiatives for the benefit of women, SC/ ST MSEs, and start-ups while highlighting the crucial role of GeM.

Senior GeM officials as well as members from the Small Farmers Agri Consortium (SFAC), National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI), Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA-Bharat), Start-Up Space, and FPOs attended the event.

In February 2019, GeM established an effort to promote "Start-ups, Women, and Youth Advantage Through eTransactions" (SWAYATT). The goal of SWAYATT 2019 was to stimulate the inclusion of diverse categories of sellers and service providers on the portal by taking aggressive measures to simplify their training and registrations of such specialised categories of manufacturers and sellers, foster female entrepreneurship, and boost MSME sector and Start-up participation in public procurement.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.