Nalco aims to procure Rs 300 cr worth goods from MSEs

This is 19.5% of the firm's total annual procurement estimated at Rs 1,540 cr for the year

The public sector National Aluminium Company (Nalco) targets to procure goods and services worth Rs 300 crore from the micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in 2014-15.

“The total value of goods and services to be procured from the MSEs are estimated at Rs 300.30 crore for the current fiscal,” said a company official.

In percentage terms, this constitutes 19.5 per cent of the total annual procurement of the company estimated at Rs 1,540 crore for the year. The list of items to be procured from the MSEs, however, excludes steel, cement, coal and fuel.

The MSEs from which the other items will be sourced includes the units promoted by SC/ST entrepreneurs, who will be supplying the company Rs 1 crore worth of goods and services in the current fiscal.

The target set by the aluminum major is in line with the Public Procurement Policy issued in 2012, which mandated that all Central ministries/PSUs should procure minimum 20 per cent of their total annual purchases of the products or services from MSEs.

According to the policy every Central ministries/PSUs will set an annual goal for procurement from the MSE sector at the beginning of the year with the objective of achieving an overall procurement goal of minimum 20 per cent of the total annual purchases of the products or services produced or rendered by MSEs in a period of three years. At the end of three years, the overall procurement goal of minimum 20 per cent will be made mandatory. In the recently held 19th Plant Level Advisory Committee (PLAC) meeting, the navratna PSU stated that orders worth Rs 294 crores was placed with the MSEs in 2013-14.

“In the context of globalisation, it is evident that the MSE units should lay more emphasis on maintaining quality, cost competitiveness and technological up-gradation,” Ansuman Das, chairman and managing director, Nalco, said in the meeting. Earlier the state government had asked the Central PSUs operating in the state to earmark 10 per cent quota for the state-based units out of the overall 20 per cent component meant for procurement from MSEs. State MSME Secretary, Panchanan Dash wrote a letter in this regard to East Coast Railways (ECoR), Nalco, Rourkela Steel Plant, NTPC, Talcher Super Thermal Power Station, Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited (NINL), Hindustan Aeronautics, Mahanadi Coal Fields and Indian Rare Earths Limited. In the letter, he had stated that only RSP and Nalco (Angul) have achieved the minimum 20 per cent purchases from the MSEs before the target date which included 10 per cent from the local units.

Nalco has given ancillary status to 57 MSEs of the state.