The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the registration of cooperative societies as “Buyers” on the government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform.
This will enable the cooperative societies to access more than 45 Lakh vendors on a single platform and to follow a transparent, economic, and efficient procurement system.
According to a press release by the Ministry of Cooperation, under the leadership of Union Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah, the Ministry of Cooperation is encouraging Multi-State Cooperative Societies and Cooperative Societies registered under State Cooperative Acts to join the GeM platform for the benefit of their members and hopes that more and more cooperative societies will get the benefit of this by joining the GeM platform.
At present, there are about 8.54 lakh cooperatives in India with about 29 crore members. They have been performing a wide range of activities for the production of goods and services.
These cooperatives make huge purchases of goods and services from the open market to support their operations.
There was a felt need to provide a platform to them to avail competitive prices through a transparent and efficient process resulting in benefit to the members of the cooperative societies.
What is Government e-Marketplace (GeM)?
The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) has been set up as a National Procurement Portal to provide an end-to-end online marketplace for Central and State Government Ministries/ Departments, PSUs, etc. for the procurement of common-use goods and services in a transparent and efficient manner.
The Gross Merchandise Value of procurement using GeM was more than Rs.1 lakh crore in the FY 2021-22.
There are around 54 lakh products listed across 9,702 product categories and 279 service categories. There was an estimated savings of around Rs.10,000 crores in the FY 2021-22.
How cooperative societies will benefit from GeM?
Cooperative societies can benefit immensely from the GeM platform.
The Cooperatives would get competitive prices through an open and transparent process, and this would be economically beneficial to the members of the society.
The Cooperative societies can procure from about 45 lakh authenticated sellers/ service providers available across the country on a single GeM platform,
Following the standard procedures on GeM would lead to a saving of time and a reduction in the administrative burden.
It would enhance the credibility of the cooperatives as complaints of mismanagement of funds will get reduced.
GeM authorities will provide a dedicated onboarding process for cooperatives, technical infrastructure, and support for on-boarding and transactions, via available contact centers, in-field training, and other support services.