New Delhi: Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday began a new exercise to assess the government’s capital expenditure plan and public sector entities during the current financial year to ensure that they used their annual allocation, preparing a strong pipe for the following year too.
On Monday, Sitharaman met officials from the Civil Service Ministry and the Department of Telecommunications (DOT), where he stressed that infrastructure projects were a priority for the government and the necessary funds would be available for capex.
The government wants to keep tabs close to infrastructure expenditures, which include not only central budget expenditures in this sector, but also those with the state and the private sector.
In the budget, the center has increased the capex of 35% to Rs 5.5 lakh Crore during the current fiscal year as part of an effort to revive the demand of cross-industrial core such as cement and steel and increase economic activity.
The latest number released by the Controller General account shows that until August, Capex rose 41% to Rs 1.7 lakh crore, which was almost a third of the target a full year.
The higher capex is part of the strategy to raise the economy, hit hard by a pandemic, which results in the private sector will be slow in fresh investment due to lower demand.
“During the meeting, the status of the capex from Q1 and Q2, the loading of the front-capex, it is estimated that the target of capital expenses by their central public and public sector companies in the current financial year quarter, expenses that occur for the implementation of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) project, estimated funds What will be raised by monetizing assets, projects made through PPP and convergence based on the National Master Plan (Gati Shakti) discussed, “said an official statement.
The Minister of Finance will meet with the department and other ministries in the coming days, said an official, added that this was a follow-up to previous discussions carried out by Sitharaman.