Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday held a video conference with Secretaries of the Ministries of Civil Aviation, and Steel, and the Railway Board Chairman, along with the CMDs of seven Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) belonging to these Ministries, to review the Capital Expenditure in this Financial Year (FY).
This was the second meeting in the ongoing series of review meetings that the Finance Minister was conducting with various stakeholders to accelerate the economic growth in the background of COVID-19 pandemic.
The combined CAPEX target for FY 2020-21 for these 7 CPSEs is Rs 24,663 crore. In FY 2019-20, against the CAPEX target of Rs 30,420 crore for these 7 CPSEs, the achievement was Rs 25,974 crore i.e. 85 per cent. During Q1 of FY 2019-20, the achievement was Rs 3,878 crore (13 per cent) and achievement of Q1 of FY 2020-21 is Rs 3,557 crore (14 per cent), according to the Ministry of Finance.
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.
The Finance Minister asked the concerned Secretaries and the Railway Board Chairman to closely monitor the performance of CPSEs in order to ensure capital expenditure of 50 per cent of capital outlay by the end of Q2 of FY 2020-21 and make an appropriate plan for it. Sitharaman stated that unresolved issues should be flagged immediately to the DEA/DPE/DIPAM for immediate action on them. The Finance Minister said that she will hold such review meetings on the performance of CAPEX of CPSEs every month.
The CPSEs discussed constraints being faced by them especially due to the 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.
( With inputs from ANI )