Cabinet approves expansion of mandate of GeM to allow procurement by cooperatives as buyers

New Delhi, June 2, 2022

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday gave its approval for expanding the mandate of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) to allow procurement by cooperatives as buyers on the platform.

GeM was launched on August 9, 2016 by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to create an open and transparent procurement platform for Government buyers.

A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) by the name of Government e- Marketplace (GeM SPV) was set up as the National Public Procurement Portal on May 17, 2017 in pursuance of the approval, of the Union Cabinet accorded on April 12, 2017.

At present, the platform is open for procurement by all government buyers: central and state ministries, departments, public sector enterprises, autonomous institutions, local bodies, and so on. As per existing mandate, GeM is not available for use by private sector buyers. Suppliers (sellers) can be from across all segments: government or private.

An official press release said more than 8.54 lakh registered cooperatives and their 27 crore members would be benefitted with this initiative. GeM portal is open for all the buyers and sellers across the country.

The release said GeM is already adequately developed as a one-stop portal to facilitate online procurement of common use Goods and Services. It is transparent, efficient, has economy of scale and is speedy in procurement. Cooperative societies will now be allowed to procure goods and services from GeM.

Allowing cooperative societies to register on GeM as buyers would help cooperatives in getting competitive prices through an open and transparent process, the release said.

The validated list of cooperatives to be onboarded on GeM - for pilot as well as subsequent scale up - will be decided by the Ministry of Cooperation in consultation with GeM SPV. This will ensure that technical capacity and logistics requirement of the GeM system are taken into account while deciding the pace of on-boarding of cooperative as buyers on GeM.

GeM will provide a dedicated onboarding process for cooperatives, provide the technical infrastructure to support additional users on existing portal, as well as provide assistance to cooperatives for onboarding and transaction journeys, via available contact centres, in-field training and other support services.

The Ministry of Cooperation will issue necessary advisories to encourage cooperative societies to make use of the GeM platform for procurement of goods and services in order to benefit from increased transparency, efficiency and competitive prices.

To protect 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.

NNN