In a move that will enable cooperative societies to access over 45 lakh vendors on a single platform, the government has approved the registration of cooperative societies as ‘Buyers’ on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform. Through the portal, cooperatives will get competitive prices through an open and transparent process in very less time, and their administrative burden will also reduce, according to an official statement.
“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 cooperatives Societies will get benefit of this by joining GeM platform,” the Ministry of Cooperation said in a statement.
It added that there are currently about 8.54 lakh cooperatives in India with about 29 crore memberships. 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.
Benefits of GeM Portal For Cooperatives
Purchases through GeM will help cooperatives get competitive prices through an open and transparent process, and this would be economically beneficial to the members of the societies. 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 saving of time and a reduction in the administrative burden. It would also enhance the credibility of the cooperatives as complaints of mismanagement of funds will get reduced.
Sale-Purchase Volume on GeM
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, according to the statement.
A total procurement of Rs 22,991 crore was done on the Government eMarketplace portal in the financial year 2019-20, compared with Rs 17,462 crore in 2018-19, Rs 6,188 crore in 2017-18 and Rs 422 crore in 2016-17. The portal was launched in August 2016 for online purchases of goods and services by all the central government ministries and departments.
According to official data, the number of sellers on the portal jumped 187 per cent to 40,02,014 in 2021-22, compared with 13,96,468 in the previous financial year. A total of 3,47,254 sellers were there on the portal in the financial year 2019-20, compared with 2,07,815 in 2018-19, 86,835 in 2017-18 and 4,299 in 2016-17.
The number of buyers on the portal also rose 14 per cent to 59,130 in the financial year 2021-22, against 52,069 in 2020-21. The total number of buyers had stood at 45,206 in the financial year 2019-20, against 35,197 in 2018-19, 21,254 in 2017-18, and 2,288 in 2016-17.
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