A decade of inclusion: How GeM is transforming public procurement for women entrepreneurs in India

As the Government e Marketplace (GeM) marks a decade of transforming public procurement, the journey of women entrepreneurs stands out as one of its most meaningful stories of inclusion and empowerment. Launched in 2019, Womaniya was conceived as a dedicated initiative to spotlight women-led enterprises on GeM and strengthen their participation in public procurement.

Over the last ten years, GeM has expanded access, enhanced transparency, and created opportunities at an unprecedented scale. Among these successes, Womaniya has emerged as a defining example of how technology-led governance can unlock economic participation for women across India.

Public procurement in India involves lakhs of crores of rupees annually across ministries, departments, and central public sector enterprises, making it one of the largest, most reliable, and most consistent buyers in the country. The capability to serve that market has never been in question. Women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) constitute over 39% of all registered enterprises in India¹. Yet, they suffer greater credit gaps and higher loan rejection rates than men, indicating a lack of access to formal credit amid deeply entrenched systemic and institutional barriers².


A platform built for her, not just open to her
On 14th January 2019, the Government e Marketplace (GeM) launched Womaniya, an initiative designed not merely to open public procurement to women entrepreneurs, but to make it structurally possible for them to participate and grow there. In doing so, it moves beyond policy intent to embrace platform design.

The initiative* identified and dismantled the specific friction points that had historically kept women-led enterprises on the margins:

• Eight dedicated #VocalForLocal online stores were built into the platform, showcasing products from women MSEs, self-help groups, artisans, weavers, FPOs, and ODOP craftsmen.

• Simplified onboarding through Udyam–GeM API integration enabled faster entry for small and first-time sellers, making them market-ready without navigating layers of paperwork.

• Marketplace filters highlight products from women-led and SC/ST enterprises, improving discoverability among government buyers.

• Policy measures and preferential procurement norms further strengthened inclusion of women entrepreneurs in B2G opportunities.

• The initiative was also designed to spur hyper-local and rural economic opportunities, ensuring that participation was not limited to urban centres.

Each of these was a deliberate design choice. Taken together, they signal something more significant than a government initiative; they represent a procurement architecture that was reimagined with women at the centre.

As GeM enters its 10th Foundation Year, the Womaniya initiative highlights the platform's evolution beyond streamlining public procurement to supporting greater market access, entrepreneurship and economic inclusion for women-led businesses.

From first movers to a pan-India force
The market has responded with conviction.

When Womaniya launched in FY 20, there were 5,756 registered women sellers on GeM*, with orders worth over ₹1,105 crore. By July 2026, that figure had scaled to over 2.24 Lakh women-led enterprises. GeM's women seller ecosystem has achieved a truly pan-India footprint, with women-led enterprises registered across all States and Union Territories, spanning every major geographic region of the country, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Arunachal Pradesh to Gujarat, underscoring both the depth and geographic reach of the platform across diverse regions of India.

Cumulatively, women-led MSEs have secured orders worth ~ ₹ 99K crore on GeM, accounting for approximately 4.7% of the platform's total order value and surpassing the government's own mandated procurement target of 3% from women-owned MSEs under the Public Procurement Policy.

Women-led enterprises on GeM are also supplying core categories: computers, electrical appliances, sanitary products, recycled materials, manpower outsourcing, facility management, transport, and consultancy services, the working backbone of government operations.

The scale of this achievement is especially significant in the context of GeM's decade-long journey. Over ten years, the platform has demonstrated that public procurement can be more than a purchasing mechanism; it can be a catalyst for inclusive growth. The rise of women-led enterprises on GeM is among the clearest indicators of that transformation.But the story does not stop at essential supply categories.

Breaking stereotypes
Women-led enterprises on GeM are moving decisively beyond traditional segments into complex, high-value domains. Today, women entrepreneurs are delivering drone-based services, artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions, and heavy equipment such as hopper tipper dumpers - areas long considered male-dominated and capital-intensive.

This shift reflects more than diversification. It signals technical capability, compliance maturity, and operational scale. On GeM, women entrepreneurs are not symbolic participants; they are trusted suppliers competing and delivering across critical sectors of public procurement.

The grassroots dimension is equally telling. As of July 2026, over 31 million women-owned MSMEs are now registered on the Udyam Registration Portal and Udyam Assist Platform, as of April 2026. Redseer data adds a powerful market signal to this story: the delinquency rate for women borrowers in India stands at 1.9%, compared to 2.2% for men³⁵, and they also have better credit scores. Women-led enterprises are not a risk category. They are an underleveraged one, and platforms such as GeM are beginning to reflect that reality.

A woman plans. A Womaniya builds.
There is a reason the initiative is not called ‘Women on GeM.’

‘Womaniya’ draws from the everyday vernacular of the Hindi heartland, a word that carries warmth, grit, and an unmistakable sense of a woman who moves on her own terms. Rather than a formal label, it reflects a cultural idiom that resonates with lived experience. The women who have joined the platform through this initiative are not mere beneficiaries of a welfare programme, but entrepreneurs who were always equipped to compete at this level and who now have a marketplace that is structurally designed to let them.

A woman plans carefully. A Womaniya builds at scale. A woman manages the present. A Womaniya claims the future. The shift that Womaniya on GeM enables is precisely this: from survival-mode enterprise to sustained market participation, from local supply chains to national procurement, from invisible to indispensable.

The alignment with Atmanirbhar Bharat, Make in India, Vocal for Local, and the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality) is not incidental. It reflects a growing policy consensus that women's economic participation is not a parallel track to growth; it is a driver of it. Research consistently shows that women reinvest a significantly higher proportion of their incomes into their families and communities, creating multiplier effects that extend well beyond the enterprise itself⁴. When millions of women-led businesses enter formal, high-value procurement markets, the impact compounds across households, communities and eventually Bharat.

As GeM commemorates its 10th Foundation Year, Womaniya stands as a powerful reminder that the platform's greatest impact cannot be measured solely through procurement volumes or transaction values. It is equally reflected in the opportunities created, the barriers dismantled, and the entrepreneurs empowered to compete on merit.

GeM's Womaniya initiative has made that entry real. The infrastructure exists. The trajectory is clear. For the Womaniya in every woman entrepreneur across India, this market was always hers to claim. In celebrating ten years of GeM, we celebrate countless stories like hers—stories that reaffirm that when access becomes equitable, possibility becomes infinite

*The data mentioned in the article is derived from proprietary data and internal market analysis conducted by Government e-Marketplace (GeM).

References

1. MSME Dashboard, Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises
2. ET Online report, March 11, 2026
3. ‘Designing for Her: Unlocking Women’s FinTech Adoption in India’, Redseer, January 2026
4. ‘Factors influencing women’s entrepreneurial success: A multi-analytical approach’ (2025)
5. Reference