Public procurement by central ministries and departments from micro and small enterprises (MSEs) stood at Rs 55,367 crore, 36.2 per cent of Rs 1.52 lakh crore in total procurement made by the government in the current financial year, showed official data from the MSME Sambandh portal on Friday.
Importantly, the government has mandated public sector enterprises and departments 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.
The total number of MSEs benefitting from the public procurement in the current financial year was 1.90 lakh including 8,092 SC/ST-owned enterprises with 0.69 per cent per cent share amounting to Rs 1,057 crore in MSE procurement and 15,314 women-owned units with 1.30 per cent share amounting to Rs 1,986 crore.
In comparison, Rs 1.74 lakh crore procurement was made in FY23 with a 37.15 per cent share of MSE procurement worth Rs 64,721 crore, data showed. Procurement from SC/ST and women MSEs was worth Rs 1,546 crore and Rs 2,318 crore respectively.
Importantly, the gross merchandise value or order value of goods and services procured by the government via its e-commerce portal Government eMarketplace (GeM) has doubled in the financial year 2023-24 from the previous fiscal, FE Aspire reported.
The total order value grew to Rs 4 lakh crore (Rs 4,00,245) in the current fiscal from Rs 2.01 lakh crore (Rs 2,01,463) in the entire FY23, on the back of growth in goods and services procured by various government departments and enterprises.
This included 49.37 per cent (Rs 1.97 lakh crore) share from MSEs in total GMV. On the other hand, the order volume on GeM also jumped by 23.6 per cent to 62.26 lakh in FY24 vis-a-vis 50.36 lakh in FY23.