The Union Minister for Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah e-launched the onboarding of cooperatives on the Government e Marketplace (GeM) portal in New Delhi on August 9, 2022.
- With this e-launch, all eligible cooperatives will be able to start placing orders on the GeM portal.
- Recently, the Ministry of Cooperation in its advisory had made the NCUI the nodal agency to facilitate onboarding of cooperatives, coordinating with GeM authorities and handholding the cooperatives in the process of on-boarding.
- NCUI has compiled a list of cooperatives with turnover/deposits of Rs. 100 crore and forwarded this information to GeM for starting the onboarding process.
About GeM
- GeM has been set up as the National procurement portal to provide an end-to-end online marketplace for Central and State Govt deptts/ Ministries, PSUs, etc for common-use goods and services in a transparent and efficient manner.
- So far GeM was not enabled for registration of cooperative societies as buyers on the platform.
- The Union Cabinet has approved on June 1st to expand the mandate for GeM to allow cooperatives to procure goods and services through GeM.
Cooperatives and constitutional provisions
- While Article 19(1)(c) guarantees freedom to form associations or unions or cooperative societies subject to certain restrictions, Article 43-B says that states shall endeavour to promote voluntary formation, autonomous functioning, democratic control and professional management of cooperative societies.
- Agriculture and cooperation are in the state list, which means state governments can govern them.
- A majority of the cooperative societies are governed by laws in their respective states, with a Cooperation Commissioner and the Registrar of Societies as their governing office.
- In 2002, the Centre passed a MultiState Cooperative Societies Act that allowed for registration of societies with operations in more than one state. These are mostly banks, dairies and sugar mills whose area of operation spreads across states. The Central Registrar of Societies is their controlling authority, but on the ground the State Registrar takes actions on his behalf.
- The 97th constitutional amendment, which dealt with issues related to effective management of co-operative societies in the country was passed by Parliament in December 2011 and had come into effect from February 15, 2012.
- The change in the Constitution has amended Article 19(1)(c) to give protection to the cooperatives and inserted Article 43 B and Part IX B, relating to them. The Supreme Court have struck down part IX B of the Constitution related to cooperative societies.
- In its ruling, the Supreme Court has observed that Article 243ZI, part of Part IXB introduced via the 97th Constitutional amendment, makes it clear that a state may make law on the incorporation, regulation and winding up of a cooperative society only subject to the instant provisions.
- The court, however, saved other parts of the amendment, including the Centre’s jurisdiction over multi-state cooperatives, and said if the Centre wanted to achieve uniformity of regulation of cooperative societies, it could invoke under Article 252 of the Constitution which accords power to Parliament to legislate for two or more states by consent.
