New Delhi: India is preparing to roll out global tendering features on the government’s digital commerce portal that will allow British firms as well as all other global firms to bid for government tenders, a senior official said.
The move on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal follows the successful conclusion of negotiations for the India-UK free trade agreement (FTA).
These features are currently unavailable on the platform, used by state and central government departments agencies to buy and sell goods and services. Once introduced, they will enable British and other foreign suppliers to participate in tenders floated by Indian government buyers.
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The global tendering feature will open the platform to international suppliers, while a ‘rate contract’ option will allow government buyers to purchase goods and services at pre-approved prices for a fixed duration—ranging from three months to a year—reducing the need for repeated bidding, according to GeM chief executive officer (CEO) Mihir Kumar.
“We are working on it, and these features will be added to the GeM portal in the coming months,” said Kumar. He did not specify a timeline for the rollout.
At present, procurement of global goods and services by the government is carried out directly by individual departments, which enter contracts with overseas suppliers on their own. These transactions are done outside the GeM portal, as the platform currently does not support global tendering.
According to a policy paper from the UK government, India has granted “legally guaranteed access” to its vast government procurement market under the FTA. This will enable British businesses to bid for around 40,000 Indian government tenders annually, valued at an estimated £38 billion.
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However, economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) has cautioned that allowing UK firms to participate in India’s central government procurement tenders could potentially crowd out Indian micro,small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which depend heavily on preferential access to such contracts. The UK move follows a similar agreement with the UAE.
“Under the deal, British firms can bid for Indian tenders, and those with at least 20% UK content will be classified as class 2 local suppliers under India’s Make in India policy. This effectively extends preferential treatment, originally intended for domestic firms, to foreign suppliers,” said Ajay Srivastava, co-founder of GTRI.
What is a rate contract?
A rate contract is an agreement between a buyer and a seller to supply goods or services at a fixed price for a specified period. Once the contract is in place, the seller has to deliver the items at the agreed rate, even if market prices rise during the contract period.
Procurement through the GeM portal is mandatory for all central government ministries and departments.
The platform is targeting transactions worth ₹7 trillion in 2025-26, up from ₹5.42 trillion in 2024-25. Currently, 40-50% of annual government procurement is conducted through GeM.
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“We will focus on states this year. We have to increase the footprint of states,” Kumar said, adding that the platform now has over 164,000 primary buyers and 42,000 active sellers, offering more than 10,000 product categories and over 330 services.
He said GeM is looking at some large-scale tenders, including ₹5,000 crore worth of equipment for the Akash Missile System to ₹5,085 crore for vaccines.
The platform also supports specialized services such as drone-as-a-service for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), geographic information systems and insurance solutions covering over 13 million lives, as well as wet leasing of chartered flights and CT scanners—demonstrating its adaptability in handling complex, mission-critical procurements.
