New Delhi, Sept 1 (KNN) Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufactures’ Association (IEEMA) has invited its members to report cases where international competitive bids have been invited  by  Government power companies for procuring equipment against domestically funded projects.

Recently, Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has issued an advisory to all Government power companies to procure from Indian firms only, for domestically funded projects.

However, instances are there, where power companies have gone for international competitive bidding for domestic project, thus often putting Indian companies against unequal competition.

IEEMA representatives has met Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Power, where the issue of non – compliance to CEA advisory was raised and the Minister asked IEEMA to provide specific cases where CPSUs/SEBs are not adhering to the CEA advisory.

FISME the leading federation of MSMEs in India has approached the power minister on another aspect of the CEA advisory.

MSMEs need foreign collaboration to produce state of the art items and cannot access technology from large foreign power equipment manufacturers, which are not cost effective.

Instead they look for smaller companies who have a good reputation in their own market and ready to collaborate with MSMEs.

However, the advisory directs that collaborations could be allowed only with those foreign technology suppliers who can provide satisfactory performance report from a ‘third country’, which means the partner should have a global footprint!

FISME has represented that this component of  the advisory goes against the letter and spirit of the ‘ make in India’ initiative of the Prime Minister and the recently announced national ‘Capital Goods policy’ both of which identified MSME sector as the prime mover for enhancing manufacturing in India. (KNN/ DB)