Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chairing a meeting on Thursday of the Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Finance on ‘Performance of Public Enterprises’ noted that the central public centre enterprises (CPSEs) made 34.63 per cent procurement from MSMEs in financial year 2023-24 as against the mandated 25 per cent, the ministry said in a post on X.

Under the public procurement norms, CPSEs are mandated to procure 25 per cent of their annual purchases from micro and small enterprises. Within the 25 per cent annual procurement target, public buyers are required to procure at least 4 per cent from MSEs led by scheduled caste/scheduled tribe entrepreneurs (SC/ST) and 3 per cent from women entrepreneurs.

Out of the procurement made from MSEs, 0.62 per cent procurement amounting to Rs 644 crore was made from 5,250 SC-ST-owned MSEs while 1.03 per cent procurement worth Rs 1,063 crore was made from 9,597 women-owned units.

Meanwhile, the ‘exponential growth’ in Government e-Marketplace procurement by CPSEs from Rs 7,035 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 1,33,720 crore in 2023-24 (up to November 2023) was highlighted during the meeting, the ministry said.

The government is also looking to help MSMEs benefit from public procurement of other countries. Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said in November that India is looking at ways such as free trade agreements to enable domesticMSMEsto participate in public procurement of different countries, PTI reported.

He said that 10-15 per cent of the GDP of any country accounts for public procurement, which could be around USD 10-15 trillion in value terms and that several countries give preference to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in their public procurement.

“As more and more FTAs (free trade agreements) are getting signed…we are also looking at…how MSMEs…can have access to public procurement of different countries, so (that) Indian companies may get an opportunity… MSMEs from other countries can get access to our portal,” Barthwal said at an event.

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