Cooperation and Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday informed Parliament that 559 cooperative societies have been onboarded on the government’s public procurement portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) as of 15 November as buyers to procure goods from lakhs of MSMEs and other businesses. This was up from over 300 cooperatives on GeM in August last year. 

“Onboarding of cooperative societies as buyers on GeM is being implemented in a phased manner. In the first phase, 618 cooperative societies/cooperative banks, which have turnover/deposits of more than Rs 100 crore as per the latest audited financial statement and ‘A’ grade Audit rating (wherever applicable), have been identified for onboarding on  GeM,” Amit Shah said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

According to the government, there are over 8.54 lakh registered cooperatives with 27 crore members in the country that would be eligible to onboard the GeM platform, FE Aspire had reported last year. 

A cooperative society is essentially an independent group of people aiming to address their common economic and social goals. 

The Cabinet in June last year had approved the inclusion of cooperatives on GeM to “bring transparency into cooperatives, help them benefit from the GeM marketplace, and give GeM sellers access to a bigger base of buyers,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told reporters in a Cabinet briefing. 

Purchases through GeM would allow cooperatives to buy goods and services from over 67 lakh vendors with reduced procurement time and administrative burden along with enhancing the credibility of the cooperatives by increasing transparency, Shah said. 

The home minister also outlined the steps taken to encourage cooperative societies to list on GeM; first outreach and awareness initiatives in physical and online training sessions by GeM and NCUI apart from setting up of dedicated Help desks for onboarding support to Cooperative Societies; second, state-wise list with contact details of GeM and NCUI nodal officers shared with cooperative societies for buyer registration, support and training mechanism/ materials through RCS (Registrar Cooperative Society); and third, RCSs of all states/UTs issued advisories and requested through video conferencing also to encourage the cooperatives for onboarding.

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