A big opportunity

It's an $8 billion (Rs 36,280 crore) business opportunity "" and the United Nations (UN) is open to increasing its trade with India. And it's a business that companies in Maharashtra can tap. Say hello to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the other UN agencies which purchases goods and services every year worth just this sum.

The shopping basket includes iron and steel products, petroleum products, vehicles and spare parts, electronic data processing equipment and accessories, electrical equipment, distribution and control transformers, structural metal products, medical and surgical equipment, chemicals, tyres and tubes and replacement equipment to eliminate ozone-depleting substances.

There are service procurements too. These could be in engineering (civil, mechanical), roads, harbour and water, mine clearances and ordnance removal, procurement services, trade and business services, training, management services, studies (economic, statistics, policy), environmental management, humanitarian relief and aid and urban, rural and regional development.

Active on this front is the Mumbai Education Trust (MET), a management educational institution. It earlier dispatched some students to the UN to automate administration there. So impressed was the UN that it hired MET as a consultant to facilitate initiatives between UNDP officials and Indian industry for fresh appointments of registered vendors from India.

Today, there are 108 registered vendors from India, around 40 of which actively supply goods and services to the UNDP. Of these, 20 are from Maharashtra.

Last month, MET organised a two-day seminar for Indian manufacturers and UNDP officials. This was to register en masse for a larger share of the $3 billion global annual purchases of goods and services by the UNDP alone.

The attempt, says MET trustee Pankaj Bhujbal, was to increase India's current two per cent export share of UNDP's annual procurement. "Even Angola has a much larger share," he says.

Adds deputy chief minister of Maharashtra and MET president Chagan Bhujbal: "MET's consultative status for UNDP registrations will boost Indian exports from the state."

Showcasing this initiative was a vendor consultant"" Rajan Bandekar, managing director of Bhagya Pharmachemie. In the late 1980s, when he was working with Lupin Laboratories and posted in China, the company received the first order from the World Bank on behalf of the UN to supply a consignment of anti-tuberculosis drugs. This put Lupin on the World Bank's radar.

Bandekar then began consulting for other companies which bagged similar contracts. Now, he is confident that at least 30 per cent of the 250-odd vendors who attended the conference will strike deals. But the strike rate isn't all that heartening. "Where we fail is in filling the form completely and submitting product samples in the prescribed format. Many get rejected by the UNDP on technical grounds," he says.

Christian Saunders, the UNDP chief in New York, says that often geographical reasons dictate UNDP's purchases. "There are few problems of perception when it comes to Indian industries as far as the UNDP is concerned," he says.

Still, the profile of participants at the seminar seemed awry. "About 80 per cent did not qualify in terms of quality and expertise," says Jaideep Juneja, general manager, AJR Resources, another consulting firm. No wonder, then, that UN officials were not too forthcoming in giving details like mailing address and contact numbers.

In fact, in four years, only one of Juneja's clients bagged a contract. "Even that was for disbursement within India and included no exports to the UN agencies worldwide. The first hurdle is selling the concept of Indian goods and services as a whole while transacting business globally," he says.

Bandekar believes that striking deals with the UN agencies is not really difficult. "The vendor should be transacting and trading in the goods he wants to supply for at least three years. After the forms are filled and the samples despatched, only persistence pays," he says.

Narendra Dutta, managing director of International Discount Telecom Corporation, which supplies software development data to US and UK-based companies, has this to say: "Indian business is growing very fast and this is the right time to tap this new field."

But not many hit the bull's eye. When UNDP said that it was looking for infrastructure, Manoj Dawane, director of Agilisys managed Services (I) Pvt Ltd, an IT services firm, attended the seminar. He found out that infrastructure actually meant makers of furniture, asbestos and construction-related activities.

Neeraj Dhingra, VIP Industries' head of international business, too went looking for business opportunities and was disappointed. "They are not looking at basic products. What the UNDP wants is manufacturers of tarpaulins, tents, materials for setting up sheds and steel products," he says.

That's why even a disappointed Juneja has been transacting business with the UN agencies through existing registered vendors among government agencies. "The only problem with this arrangement is that we do not get proper feedback, knowing how government agencies function, be it on the pricing front or other modifications. Even when we try to directly contact the UN, we get no response."