The mantra of ‘vocal for local’ has been adopted by the Yogi Adityanath government in its true spirit. Apart from giving a boost to local products in many fields, it has done wonders with the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the state.
In four-and-a-half years, the government departments have made a purchase of about Rs 15,000 crore from the GeM portal, the highest in the country. Out of this, the MSME sector alone accounted for about Rs 9,200 crore. For the first time in the history of the state, such a huge government purchase has been made by the MSMEs. In order to further promote the MSME sector in the state, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had issued an order in March last year that every department would purchase 25 per cent of its annual budget from MSMEs.
As a result of this, till November 10 in the current financial year, the government departments procured goods worth about Rs 3,855 crore, about 70 per cent of the total purchase, from the GeM portal. Besides, the government has also issued the biggest ever procurement tender on the GeM portal to provide free tablets and smartphones to youths. This purchase is expected to be of about Rs 3,000 crore.
Additional Chief Secretary, MSME, Navneet Sehgal said that procurement through the GeM portal has brought in transparency, quality and saved public money by eliminating the possibilities of corruption in government purchases.
“Furthermore, due to increase in procurement from MSMEs, more than 2.25 lakh youths have got direct and indirect employment opportunities,” the ACS said.
A record purchase of Rs 5,537 crore was made through GeM portal in the financial year 2021-22 while it was Rs 602 crore in the financial year 2017-18, Rs 1,674 crore in the financial year 2018-19 and Rs 2,401 crore in the financial year 2019-20.
Recently, the state has become number one for the third time in the highest government procurement from the GeM portal in the country. Even before this, the Central government had honoured the state with the ‘Best Buyer Award’ in 2018 and ‘Super Buyer Award’ in 2019.