FICCI in partnership with the Ministry of MSME & Vidarbha Industries Association organised a ‘Buyer-Seller’ meet at VIA to connect micro and small enterprises (MSEs) owned by SC/ST entrepreneurs with PSUs to explore potential collaboration.
The recent amendment in the Public Procurement Policy has made it mandatory for all Central ministries and departments including CPSUs to ensure 25 per cent of their overall annual procurement from MSEs including sub targets for procurement from the MSEs owned by women and SC/ST entrepreneurs.
HPCL, MOIL, NTPC, MAHAGENCO, Western Coal Fields, ECGC, Nagpur Smart City, CIPET, MSME-DI, FDA Maharashtra, MECL were some of the top public sector enterprises and state departments, which participated in the ‘Buyer Seller’ meet and interacted with over 60 SC/ST entrepreneurs over one- to-one business meetings to assess procurement viability.
Senior representatives of NSIC and TRIFED as well as members of MCED, BEACI and FICCI’s MoU partner, Centre for the Study of Caste and Capitalism (CSCC), also participated in this endeavour.
Earlier, during the inaugural session, A P Dharmadhikari, Joint Director of Industries, shared information on various State Government schemes, including entrepreneurship development programme (EDP), reserved items for SC/ST, Samadhan portal to resolve payment issues, to handhold the entrepreneurs representing SC/ST community. R M Tekam from NSIC shared the benefits of single point registration and waiver available on registration fee for SC/ST entrepreneurs.
On the occasion, Atul Pande, President of Vidarbha Industries Association appreciated the efforts of Ministry of MSME and FICCI in bringing together the PSUs and SC/ST entrepreneurs for the ‘Buyer Seller’ meet as part of 100 days outreach programme for MSMEs by Government of India. VIAs Joint Action Committee, which includes representatives of local associations can help in identifying the MSMEs to source products and services needed by PSUs.
“FICCI has been working closely with the Ministry of MSME towards implementation of Public Procurement Policy and reaching out to both private and public sector stakeholders. We expect that the Buyer Seller meet will help the entrepreneurs.”
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