Public procurement from women-owned MSEs in FY21 surpasses FY20 level

The public procurement of goods and services by central ministries, departments and central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) from women-owned micro and small enterprises (MSEs) this fiscal has exceeded the FY20 level, according to the MSME Sambandh portal.

With less than a month left for the completion of the current financial year, the procurement from women-owned MSEs has already surpassed the FY20 level.

So far this fiscal, CPSEs have purchased goods worth Rs 558.85 crore, benefitting 3596 MSEs.  In FY20, the procurement of goods from women-owned MSEs stood at Rs 393.43 crore. It had benefitted 3657 women-owned MSEs. The procurement in FY19 stood at Rs 232.56 crore.

In 2018, the government had revised the annual public procurement target for the government organisations from MSEs to 25 percent from 20 percent stipulated earlier.

Out of the 25 percent procurement target, 4 percent of the purchases have been set aside to come from the MSEs owned by the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and a 3 percent target has been earmarked for the women-owned MSEs.

In FY19, the procurement from women MSEs was only 0.15 percent of the overall procurement. It increased to 0.32 percent in FY20 and is 0.58 percent in the current fiscal as of March 5.

As per the National Sample Survey (NSS) 2015-16, there are a total of 1,23,90,523 women-owned proprietary MSMEs in the country.

MSME Sambandh was launched by the government in December 2017 for the effective implementation of the procurement policy and to keep a record of public procurement made by government departments and ministries.

The overall procurement as of date is Rs. 96,195.36 crore from 135 CPSEs.