India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) to accomplish 75 percent of their planned capital expenditure (CAPEX) target for 2020-21 by December this year, to help economic growth hit by the coronavirus crisis. According to an official statement, it says that the Finance Minister conveyed the message at a virtual meeting with secretaries of coal and petroleum and natural gas, in presence of the chairman and managing directors of 14 sector enterprises belonging to these ministries.

This was the fourth in the consecutive series of meetings that the finance minister held with various share holders to boost the economic growth in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. While taking stocks of the performance of CPSEs, Finance Minister said Capex by CPSEs is a critical booster of economic growth and needs to be scaled up for the FY 2020-21 & 2021-22. The finance minister asked the concerned secretaries to watch closely the performance of CPSEs so as to ensure the capital expenditure to the extent of 75 percent of the capital outlay by the end of the third quarter of 2020-21. 

She explained that more coordinated efforts are needed at the levels of secretary of concerned ministries and CMDs of CPSEs to achieve the target of capex. In 2019-20, against the capex target of Rs 1,11,672-Cr for these 14 CPSEs, the achievement was Rs 1,16,323-Cr that is 104 per cent. It added that the capex target is recorded Rs 1,15,934-Cr for these companies for the current fiscal. Further, the achievement in the first half of the current financial year figured at Rs 37,423 crore, i.e. 32 percent of the target, while it was Rs 43,097-Cr or 39 percent in the last financial year.

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