Govt pays no heed to procuring from SC/ST entrepreneurs
Almost all union ministries failed to meet their targets to purchase from the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) owned by members from the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in 2021-22 financial year.
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New Delhi: Almost all union ministries failed to meet their targets to purchase from the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) owned by members from the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in 2021-22 financial year.
Only four of the 54 ministries exceeded the target procurement from SC-ST entrepreneurs in the last fiscal, but in each case the target was below Rs1 crore, official sources told Bizz Buzz. The Ministry of Space had a target of Rs18 lakh, whereas the achievement was Rs76.68 lakh. In the case of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the corresponding numbers were Rs5 lakh and Rs6.44 lakh; the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Rs40,000 and Rs66,200; the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Rs37 lakh and Rs37.33 lakh. Ironically, the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, whose primary mandate as per its own website is "the empowerment of the disadvantaged and marginalized sections of the society," failed miserably to achieve the target of Rs6.11 crore; the achievement was a fraction of the target, Rs45.21 lakh.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, though it failed to achieve the target of Rs102.4 crore, did well, procuring about Rs84 crore from SC-ST businesspersons.
The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas was given the highest target, over Rs2,100 crore, whereas the achievement was around Rs808 crore.
The Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers had a target of above Rs190 crore; the achievement was below Rs10 crore. The Ministry of Coal's performance was even worse: less than Rs14 crore purchases against the target of Rs369 crore.
The Ministry of Communications was expected to purchase over Rs40 crore goods and services from the SC-ST businesspersons; it bought just Rs 2,000. For the Ministry of Heavy Industries, the corresponding numbers are Rs398 crore and Rs12.6 crore; the Ministry of Steel, Rs325 crore and Rs32 crore. As many as 24 ministries weren't even given any targets. The Ministry of Ayush was given a small target of Rs3 crore, but no purchases were made.
The Ministry of Human Resources Development was given an even smaller target, but nothing was bought from SC-ST entrepreneurs. Similarly, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy didn't do anything to attain the Rs2.18 crore target.
