New Delhi: Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman held a video conference with the secretaries of the Ministries of Power, Mines and Department of Atomic Energy and the CMDs of 10 PSUs belonging to these Ministries, to review the capital expenditure (CAPEX) in this financial year. This was the fifth in the ongoing series of meetings that the Finance Minister has had with various stakeholders to accelerate the economic growth in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The overall achievement as on November 23, is Rs 24,227 crore (39.4 percent) against the CAPEX target for FY2020-21 i.e. Rs.61,483 crore.
While reviewing the performance of PSUs, Sitharaman said that CAPEX by PSUs is a critical driver of economic growth and needs to be scaled up for FY2020-21 and 2021-22. The Finance Minister appreciated the efforts of the ministries and PSUs for making visible efforts to meet the CAPEX targets. However, Sitharaman said that more efforts are still required to achieve the target of 75 percent CAPEX by Q3 and more than 100 percent by Q4 of FY2020-21. The Finance Minister encouraged PSUs to perform better to achieve targets and to ensure that the capital outlay provided to them for the year 2020-21 is spent properly and within time.
Sitharaman asked the secretaries to closely monitor the performance of CPSEs in order to ensure that they achieve the target of CAPEX and make a plan for it. She also asked the secretaries to proactively sort out the unresolved issues of CPSEs.
The PSUs CAPEX review is carried out jointly by the Department of Economic Affairs and the Department of Public Enterprises.
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