New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS): In an effort to increase the turnover of the Government eMarketplace (GeM) to Rs 3 lakh crore, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced to created a Unified Procurement System in the country.

The aim is to provide a single platform for procurement of goods, services and works.

The move "is proposed to take the turnover of GeM to Rs 3 lakh crore. Currently, 3.24 lakh vendors are already on this platform," said Sitharaman.

The commerce ministry launched GeM, an online platform for public procurement, in August 2016.

Created in a record time of five months, it facilitates online procurement of common use goods and services required by various government departments/organisations/PSUs.

GeM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement. It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate the government users, achieve the best value for their money.

The emarketplace has 42,389 buyer organisations and 324,452 sellers and service providers on the platform.

GeM is currently working on several steps including a mechanism for timely payment to registered small businesses and MSMEs.