Northern Railway holds a virtual Vendor Meet to achieve the objective of ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’
In pursuance to the ‘Make in India’ policy of Government of India to promote manufacturing and production of goods, services and works in India with a broader objective of achieving ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’, Northern Railway organised a virtual Vendor Meet on December 28. The focus of the meet was to have an industry perspective about implementation of ‘Make in India’ policy in Ministry of Railways and understand their nature of feedback to further strengthen implementation of the policy. The meet was attended by more than 50 participants from various industries across the country.
During the meet, it was highlighted that the procurement processes of Northern Railway are conducive to the Make in India products. Special care has been taken to avoid any restrictive or discriminatory criteria so as to help the domestic industry to participate in various procurements. Attention was also drawn to the provisions of the policy for increasing ‘local content’ through partnerships, cooperation with indigenous companies, establishing production units in India or joint venture with Indian suppliers. Discussions were also held to clarify the various provisions of the policy including the correct interpretation of ‘local content’, the categorisation of vendors under class-I, class-11 and non-local suppliers, the extent of purchase preference and the process of applying the same in tender decision.
A digital exhibition of items having limited indigenous vendor-base was also on display with all the relevant information for the industry to enhance the local manufacturing capacity. Industry representatives actively participated in the interactive session for clearing their doubts.
The Industry representatives expressed satisfaction over the implementation of the policy in Northern Railway and were hopeful of larger participation in future under ‘Make in India’ policy to achieve the objective of ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’.