Nirmala Sitharaman pushes large central public sector enterprises to meet half of FY21 capex target by September

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday exhorted large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) to achieve by next month 50 per cent of their planned capital expenditure target for FY21 to support economic growth in the backdrop of challenges posed by Covid-19.

She held a virtual meeting with secretaries of the ministries of shipping, road transport and highways, housing and urban affairs, defence and telecom, an official statement said.

The chairman and managing directors of seven CPSEs belonging to these ministries also attended the meeting to review the capital expenditure (CAPEX) in this financial year, it said.

This was the third meeting in the ongoing series of meetings that the finance minister is having with various stakeholders to accelerate the economic growth amidst Covid-19 pandemic.

She asked the secretaries to closely monitor the performance of CPSEs in order to ensure capital expenditure to the tune of 50 per cent of capital outlay by the end of second quarter of 2020-21 and make appropriate plans for it, the statement said.

The combined CAPEX target for 2020-21 for these seven CPSEs is Rs 1,24,825 crore as against Rs 1,29,821 crore in the previous fiscal.

"The achievement was Rs 1,14,730 crore i.e. 88.37 per cent. During Q1 of FY 2019-20, the achievement was Rs 20,172 crore (15.53 per cent) and achievement up to July 2020 (FY 2020-21) is Rs 24,933 crore (20 per cent)," it said.

"While mentioning the significant role of CPSEs in giving a push to the growth of the Indian economy, the finance minister encouraged the CPSEs to perform better to achieve their targets and to ensure that the capital outlay provided to them for the financial year 2020-21 is spent properly and within time," it said.

She said that better performance of CPSEs can help the economy in a big way to recover from the impact of Covid-19, it added.

The CPSEs discussed constraints being faced by them especially due to Covid–19 pandemic.

"The finance minister stated that extraordinary situation requires extraordinary efforts and with collective efforts, we will not only perform better but also help the Indian economy to achieve better results," it said.

Last month, she held two meetings to review capex plans of CPSEs.