GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 9th August. Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday announced that over 300 cooperatives have been onboarded as buyers on the GeM portal to help them purchase goods and services at competitive prices.
Amit Shah virtually launched the process of onboarding cooperatives on the GeM portal today.
All eligible cooperatives with a turnover/deposit of 100 crore will be able to place orders on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal in the first phase.
In India, there are over 8.5 lakh cooperatives. The cooperative societies were onboarded and enabled as buyers on the GeM during the launch programme.
IFFCO, KRIBHCO, NAFED, Amul, and Saraswat Co-op Bank were among the major cooperatives that have been onboarded on Tuesday. On the day of the launch, it is expected that orders worth Rs 25 crore will be placed.
Mr Shah stated during his speech at the event that more than 300 cooperative societies, including 45 multi-state cooperative societies, have been onboarded during the launch.
Amit Shah encouraged the cooperatives to register as sellers on the GeM platform, which will provide a large platform for selling their products to a large pool of government buyers.
The minister also urged cooperatives to change by implementing transparency in their election, recruitment, and purchasing processes.
Mr Shah stated that the government is taking various steps to reform the cooperative sector, such as developing a new cooperative policy, establishing a university for training purposes, and establishing an export house.
According to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, the initiative will facilitate cooperative trade.
With the onboarding of cooperatives, he said, the value of trade on the GeM platform will rise significantly.
“Business worth ₹ 2.80 lakh crore has taken place in the last six years,” Mr Goyal said, adding that the target of ₹ 2 lakh crore for this fiscal would now have to be revised with the onboarding of cooperatives.
National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) President Dileep Sanghani termed it a historic day for cooperatives, saying this would help them in a big way.
In June, the Union Cabinet approved a proposal to expand the mandate for GeM to allow cooperatives to procure goods and services through the portal.
The Cabinet decision enabled the registration of co-operative societies as ‘buyers’ on the GeM platform.
About 8.54 lakh cooperatives in India with about 29 crore members purchasing goods and services from the open market needed a platform to avail competitive prices through a transparent and efficient process.
Recently, the Cooperation Ministry made NCUI the nodal agency to facilitate the onboarding of cooperatives and coordinating with the GeM authorities.
In the first phase, cooperative societies/banks with turnover/deposits of more than ₹ 100 crore as per the latest financial statement and with an A grade audit rating (wherever applicable) are being taken up for onboarding.
NCUI has compiled a list of cooperatives with turnover/deposits of ₹ 100 crore and forwarded this information to GeM. As many as 589 cooperatives have been shortlisted as eligible for onboarding.
The GeM has been set up as the national procurement portal to provide an end-to-end online marketplace for central and state government departments/ ministries, PSUs etc for common-use goods and services in a transparent and efficient manner.
The GeM platform is open for all government buyers, such as central ministries, state departments, public sector enterprises, autonomous bodies, panchayats and now cooperatives.
According to the cooperation ministry statement, to date, about 61,851 government buyers and around 48.75 lakh sellers and service providers are registered on the GeM and they have listed more than 45 lakh products in over 10,000 products and 288 service categories.
“1.08 crore+ orders worth ₹ 2,78,504 crore have been fulfilled on the GeM platform,” it added.
The procurement through the GeM platform will lead to saving of time and reduction of administrative costs for cooperatives. Agency inputs
Comments are closed.