Leading the way: P. Udayakumar, Director (Planning and Marketing) NSIC, at the function held in Tiruchi on Saturday. | Photo Credit: A. Muralitharan more-in The National Small Industries Corporation Ltd. (NSIC) has embarked on a drive to sensitise and facilitate micro and small industries owned by Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes to become qualified vendors to public sector units (PSUs) and other government departments. The Centre has made it mandatory for PSUs and other government department to make 20% of purchase of products and service from micro and small industries. Of this, 4% should be from micro and small units owned by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. “While the PSUs and government departments procurement from micro and small industries has been gradually improving, procurement from SC/ST units remained very low. The NSIC was conducting special vendor development programmes for SC/ST units to help them register themselves as qualified vendors with the PSUs and other departments,” said P. Udayakumar, Director (Planning and Marketing), NSIC, here on Saturday. Speaking on the sidelines of a special vendor development programme for SC/ST organised by NSIC in the city, Mr. Udayakumar said one of the reasons cited by the PSUs for the poor procurement was non availability of SC/ST vendors. In an attempt to overcome the problem, the Union government has set up SC/ST Business Hub to identify potential SC/ST vendors and extend hand holding support to them. Mr. Udayakumar observed that one of the reasons for the poor procurement was also the rigid procurement policies pursued by the PSUs and government departments. There is need for modifying the norms in terms of eligibility of vendors. “We have been telling them (PSUs and government organisations) to do this,” Mr. Udayakumar said. The NSIC has also set up a Finance Facilitation Centre by tying up with banks to facilitate credit flow to MSMEs, he said. Later, speaking at the vendor development programme Mr. Udayakumar called upon the micro and small industries owned by SC/STs to take advantage of the initiative of the Centre by improving their capabilities, upgrading technology and adapting to the e-tendering processes. There was good scope for PSUs and government organisations to outsource their products and services to micro and small vendors, he said. The outcome of the vendor development programmes was also being monitored by the government, he added. Officials from BHEL, Tiruchi, Railway Workshop, Golden Rock and Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project participated in the programme and explained their procurement processes.

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