Public procurement: The number of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) benefitting from the government’s public procurement policy has crossed 1 lakh in a little over the seven-month period of the current financial year. According to the data from the public procurement policy monitoring portal MSME Sambandh, 1.08 lakh MSEs have benefitted since April this year with products worth Rs 31,428 crore purchased by government enterprises and departments from such enterprises.

The procurement value was 34.60 per cent of the total purchases worth Rs 90,829 crore made by the government in the current fiscal as of Monday.

Rs 558 crore purchases, 0.62 per cent of the procurement made from MSEs, were made from 4,694 SC/ST-owned MSEs while Rs 918 crore worth products 1.01 per cent of the total MSE procurement, were purchased from 8,201 women MSEs.

Also read: 7 years of govt’s National SC-ST Hub scheme: How it has fared in boosting public procurement

For the uninitiated, the central government ministries, departments and central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) are mandated to procure 25 per cent of their annual value of goods or services from MSEs. This included 4 per cent procurement from SC/ST units and 3 per cent from women units. 

In FY23, out of Rs 1.79 lakh crore procurement made by the government, 35 per cent amounting to Rs 63,834 crore was made from MSEs including 0.84 per cent worth Rs 1,500 crore from SC/ST units and 1.22 per cent worth Rs 2,196 crore from women-led MSEs.

FY23 procurement was 42 per cent more than the set target, MSME minister Narayan Rane had posted on X earlier this year. “Through the Public Procurement Policy, the Central Government is promoting small-scale enterprises by purchasing the products of MSEs. In the financial year 22-23, the government spent 60432 Cr. (42% more than the target). Our government is creating a simple and transparent environment for MSMEs.”

Also read: Public procurement: Rs 13,000 cr goods purchased from micro, small enterprises so far in current FY

Importantly, the MSME ministry in October last year had prepared a revised list of 469 items (including goods and services) to be reserved for exclusive procurement from MSEs in order to boost procurement from small businesses. The government had included multiple services to the earlier list of 358 items which only contained goods for exclusive procurement. 

Subscribe to Financial Express SME (FE Aspire) newsletter now: Your weekly dose of news, views, and updates from the world of micro, small, and medium enterprises