Representatives of more than two dozen micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) learnt more about the opportunities in public sector companies and Government departments at a vendor development programme organised by the MSME Development Institute and the Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association (SIEMA) in Coimbatore on Friday.
V. Krishna Kumar, vice-president of SIEMA, said the aim of the programme was to expose the MSMEs to new areas.
The MSMEs were catering mostly to traditional sectors such as automobiles and pumpsets and these industries too had seasonal demand.
Such events gave an opportunity for MSMEs to interact with the Southern Railways and know the potential to expand activities.
Though many industries were reluctant to deal with the Government departments, many of these now had e-tendering procedures that were customer-friendly, he said.
Awareness
M. Palanivel, deputy director of the MSME Development Institute, said the event created awareness about the Public Procurement Policy of the Union Government.
The policy came into effect on April 1, 2012 and all Government departments and public sector units should procure 20 per cent of their requirements from the MSMEs.
As many as 358 items were already reserved for procurement from MSMEs and this would continue, he said.
Navita Singh, Chief Workshop Manager, Signal and Telecom Workshop, Southern Railways, Podanur, said the annual procurement of components by the workshop was to the tune of Rs. 30 crore.
It mainly made signalling equipment for railways and the products were mostly electromechanical.
It was moving to electronic products and was looking at joint development of these products.
The components were purchased from those who were selected through the e-tender process. It wanted to have more local partners so that there would be no delays in getting the supplies. “Lot of industries from Coimbatore are already working with us,” she said.
The SIEMA and the MSME Development Institute organised a similar event last year, involving large-scale private companies.
