This move will help 8.54 lakh registered cooperative societies and their 27 crore members
This move will help 8.54 lakh registered cooperative societies and their 27 crore members
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to expand the mandate of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) by allowing procurement by cooperatives.
Presently, registration of cooperative societies as buyers was not included in the existing mandate of GeM.
This move will help 8.54 lakh registered cooperative societies and their 27 crore members as they will get products at competitive rates from GeM portal.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told reporters that these cooperatives would benefit from this decision.
As per the extant mandate, the goods and services registered on the GeM portal are not available for use by private sector buyers. Suppliers (sellers) can be from all classes – government or private.
This decision was taken in the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
GeM was launched on August 9, 2016 by the Ministry of Commerce to create an open and transparent procurement platform for government buyers. Presently, the platform is open for purchase by all government buyers – central and state ministries, departments, public sector enterprises, autonomous institutions and local bodies.
Allowing cooperatives to register as buyers on GeM will help cooperatives to get competitive prices through an open and transparent process.
The valid list of cooperatives to be onboarded on GeM will be decided by the Ministry of Cooperation in consultation with the GeM Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) – for pilot as well as subsequent scale-up.
This will ensure that the technical capability and logistics requirements of the GeM system are taken into account while deciding the pace of onboarding of cooperatives as buyers on GeM.
A dedicated onboarding process for GeM cooperatives, technical infrastructure to support additional users on existing portals as well as cooperatives for onboarding and transaction journey through available contact centres, in-field training and other support services will provide assistance.
The Ministry of Cooperation will issue necessary advisories to encourage cooperatives to use the GeM platform for procurement of goods and services to take advantage of increased transparency, efficiency and competitive prices.
In order to protect the interest of the wider vendor community on GeM and to ensure timely payments, the modalities of the payment mechanism will be decided by GeM in consultation with the Ministry of Cooperation.
GeM will initiate appropriate action including creation of necessary facilities and functionalities on GeM portal, upgradation of infrastructure, strengthening of helpdesk and training ecosystem and onboarding of cooperatives.
The overall pace and mechanism of roll-out will be decided by the Ministry of Cooperation.
The milestones and target dates will be interlinked between the ministry and GeM.
The ministry wanted cooperatives to be allowed to procure goods and services from GeM as it is already sufficiently developed as a one-stop portal to facilitate online procurement.
Moreover, since the societies have more than 27 crore members, procurement through GeM will not only benefit the common man financially, but will also increase the credibility of the cooperatives.
While GeM SPV will continue to leverage the existing platform and organization to support the proposed expanded mandate, it may require additional technology infrastructure and some investment in training and support resources.
To cover these incremental costs, GeM may charge a reasonable transaction fee from the cooperatives to be decided in mutual consultation with the Ministry of Cooperation.
Such charges shall not exceed the charges that GeM would charge from other Government buyers.
This will be planned to ensure the self-sufficiency of GeM’s operations, and hence no major financial impact is expected for the government.