New Delhi, Aug 16 (KNN) Research, Development and Standards Organisation (RDSO) the premier R&D organisation of Indian Railways is working with SIDBI to facilitate supplies by MSMEs to Railways.

FISME, the lead federation of Indian MSMEs, will provide the back end support for the programme.

The programme will be launched at the New Auditorium of RDSO at Manak Bagh, Lucknow by the senior officers of RDSO and SIDBI.

The concept for the fast track for MSME suppliers of Railways was laid by the Railways Minister, Suresh Prabhu at a meeting conducted recently.

In the meeting organised to develop a road map for enhanced supply by MSMEs to Railways, the Minister asked for a time bound action plan.

RDSO has already taken a number of initiatives to encourage participation of MSMEs in Railways procurements.

The most significant are reservation of 20% of all orders for new entrants and earmarking of development orders to MSMEs.

SIDBI on its end are offering financial package to MSMEs developing innovative solutions.

Towards ‘Ease of Doing Business’ for MSMEs RDSO has already launched a single portal for all information and minimised the number of documents from 22 to 6.

Railways has also reduced the registration charges for micro and small enterprises from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 15,000 and extended the period of re-audits to 5 years.

FISME is at the fore front   for cutting a respectable share for MSMEs in the pie of the Government order of about Rs. 2 trillion rupees, annually.

For this while on the one hand the FISME leadership is working with large buyers like Railways, it is also working at the policy level to ease the  procurements under compulsory ‘make in India’ accessible to MSMEs.

For the Railways, FISME will facilitate SIDBI in organising MSME suppliers’ meet with railways, at the all India level, to iron out the last mile bottlenecks. (KNN/ DB)