In a move to provide a new opportunity for the MSME sector, the government today approved a proposal to expand the mandate of Government e-Marketplace (GeM) by allowing procurement by co-operatives.
The move will help over 8.54 lakh registered co-operatives and their 27 crore members as they would get products at competitive rates from the GeM portal.
Presently, the registration of co-operatives as buyers was not covered within the existing mandate of GeM.
Launched in August 2016, GeM so far allowed procurement of goods and services by government departments, ministries, and public sector units (PSUs) from MSMEs and other enterprises.
“This will bring transparency into co-operatives, help them benefit from the GeM marketplace, and give GeM sellers access to a bigger base of buyers,” information and broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said.
Currently, GeM is not available for private sector buyers while sellers could be from across all segments including government or private.
The gross merchandise value has grown at a compunded growth rate of over 84.5 per cent from FY 2018-19 to FY 2021-22. The portal has delivered 178% growth in GMV in FY 2021-22 and has crossed Rs 1 lakh Crore in FY 2021-22 alone, which is higher than the cumulative GMV till FY 2020-21.
Allowing cooperative societies to register on GeM as buyers would help cooperatives in getting competitive prices through an open and transparent process. The validated list of cooperatives to be onboarded on GeM - for the pilot as well as subsequent scale-up - will be decided by the Ministry of Cooperation in consultation with GeM special purpose vehicle (SPV).
This will ensure that the technical capacity and logistics requirements of the GeM system are taken into account while deciding the pace of onboarding of cooperatives as buyers on GeM.
GeM will provide a dedicated onboarding process for cooperatives, technical infrastructure to support additional users on existing portals, as well as assistance to cooperatives for onboarding and transaction journey via available contact centres, in-field training and other support services.
The Ministry of Cooperation will issue necessary advisories to encourage the cooperative societies to make use of the GeM platform for the procurement of goods and services to benefit from increased transparency, efficiency and competitive prices.
To protect the interests of the broader seller community on GeM and ensure timely payments, the modalities of payment systems shall be decided by GeM in consultation with the Ministry of Cooperation.
