Cabinet approves cooperative societies as buyers on GeM platform

New Delhi, June 2 (KNN) The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the registration of cooperative societies as buyers on Government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform which would lead to saving of time and reduction in the administrative burden.

It 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.

Credibility of the cooperatives is likely to be enhanced as complaints of mismanagement of funds will get reduced.

GeM authorities will provide a dedicated on-boarding process for cooperatives, technical infrastructure and support for on-boarding and transactions, via available contact centres, in-field training, and other support services.

Currently there are about 8.54 lakh cooperatives in India with about 29 crore membership. 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, hence there was a need to provide them a platform to avail competitive prices through a transparent and efficient process resulting in benefit to the members of the cooperative societies.

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 Rs10, 000 crore in the FY 2021-22.  (KNN Bureau)