Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The procurement of defence-related goods and services by the government from micro and small enterprises (MSEs) has been able to only marginally improve in FY21 from the previous financial year that saw a decline of 23 per cent from FY19, government data showed. Defence department and central public sector enterprises had procured goods worth Rs 12,112 crore in FY19 from MSEs in defence. The procurement, however, declined to Rs 9,090 crore in FY20 and was able to recover by only 2.2 per cent to Rs 9,293 crore as of March 11 in the current financial year. According to a statement by the Ministry of Defence in September 2020, around 11,000 MSMEs were engaged as vendors in supplying defence-related goods to Ordnance Factory Board and defence PSUs. The government had launched an initiative called Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) in 2018 towards achieving self-reliance in defence by engaging MSMEs, startups, academia and others.
iDEX Chairman and Secretary, Defence Production Raj Kumar wasn’t immediately available for comments for this story. The same will be updated here as and when shared.
Source: Financial Express
