The Government e-Marketplace (GeM), India’s National Public Procurement Portal under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has entered into a strategic partnership with Common Service Centre e-Governance Services India Limited (CSC-SPV) to broaden access to government procurement across the country, with emphasis on rural and underserved regions. The partnership was formalised through a memorandum of understanding signed on 18 June 2026 at the GeM office in New Delhi. The accord represents an expansion of a collaboration first established in 2022 and aims to strengthen the last-mile linkage between sellers and public procurement opportunities. The revised framework moves beyond basic seller registration and profile creation to a more outcome-oriented model that guides sellers through onboarding to catalogue listing. The expanded scope encompasses facilitation for vendor assessment, brand approval, and product and service catalogue creation and publication, intending to improve conversion from registration to active listing. It is designed to ease compliance with key onboarding requirements and to increase participation of enterprises from semi-urban and rural areas in government procurement. As a primary feature of the initiative, 50 GeM Suvidha Kendras will be established on a pilot basis through the CSC network across selected states and union territories, including Delhi-NCR, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and West Bengal. These centres will operate as local facilitation hubs providing guidance, training, onboarding support and assistance with GeM processes. The centres will also handle grievance redressal and awareness generation at the local level. The centres aim to provide handholding support to micro and small enterprises, women entrepreneurs, SC/ST entrepreneurs, startups, artisans, weavers, self-help groups, farmer producer organisations and local manufacturers to improve their access to public procurement. The earlier collaboration assisted about 0.53 million (mn) sellers to complete registration and profile creation through the CSC network, and the pilot will be evaluated for wider rollout based on outcomes and stakeholder feedback. The memorandum of understanding was signed by the Additional Chief Executive Officer of GeM, Ajit B. Chavan, and the Senior Vice President of CSC-SPV, Subodh Mishra.