Ease of doing business for MSMEs: The government’s public procurement initiative Government eMarketplace (GeM) has registered over 1.44 lakh Udyam-verified women-led micro and small enterprises (MSEs) under its Womaniya programme launched in 2019 to encourage women entrepreneurs and self-help groups (SHG) from the informal sector to sell via GeM. According to the data shared by the commerce ministry in a statement on Saturday, women MSE sellers have fulfilled over 14.76 lakh orders worth Rs 21,265 crore in gross merchandise value (GMV) since 2019. Women entrepreneurs have a share of 74 per cent in the order value of products sold on GeM and 26 per cent in the order value of service categories.
As per the available data on the GeM portal, there are 57.67 lakh sellers registered currently with 1.3 crore orders fulfilled worth Rs 3.62 lakh crore GMV so far indicating women MSE share of 2.49 per cent in total seller count, 11.2 per cent share in total orders fulfilled and 5.8 per cent in total GMV.
Moreover, the top five product categories with the maximum number of women entrepreneurs were desktop computers, smartphones, special purpose telephones (smartphone for integrated child development service – ICDS), hopper tipper dumper while the top five service categories were manpower outsourcing services – minimum wage, custom bid for services, human resource outsourcing service, monthly basis cab and taxi hiring services, and manpower outsourcing services – fixed remuneration, according to the government data.
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“The objective of ‘Womaniya’ is to develop women entrepreneurship on the margins of society who face challenges in accessing public procurement markets, and work towards achieving gender-inclusive economic growth of under-served seller groups such as women-owned and led MSEs, tribal entrepreneurs, divyangjan, startups, SHGs, artisan and weavers,” the ministry said at an event organised to commemorate the success of Womaniya on GeM in partnership with Self-Employed Women’s Association — SEWA Bharat.
Importantly, GeM has signed memorandums of understanding with SEWA to support women-led micro and small enterprises, women entrepreneurs and SHGs in public procurement and with Usha Silai School to train and upskill women seamstresses as service providers in public procurement.
The Womaniya initiative also aligns with the government’s target of 3 per cent procurement from women MSEs annually. In FY22, Rs 53,483 crore worth of goods and services were procured by government departments and enterprises from MSEs, of which only 1.01 per cent amounting to Rs 1,660 crore were from women MSEs, according to the data from the public procurement monitoring portal MSME Sambandh. In FY23 so far, Rs 42,564 crore procurement has been made from MSEs with 0.96 per cent share worth Rs 1,205 crore of women MSEs.