The Finance Ministry on Friday said that nearly 40 per cent of the capital expenditure budgeted has been spent during first five months (April-August) of the current fiscal. Also, it has released nearly two third of the outstanding dues for government purchases.

“Capital expenditure is on track and we will achieve 100 per cent.” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters here after her meeting with Secretaries and Financial Advisors of 21 Ministries including those belonging to the infrastructure segment. She also expressed hope that there will be no requirement for amending the rule which limits maximum of 33 per cent of total expenditure during last quarter and 15 per cent in March alone.

The meeting reviewed the position of Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) of select Ministries having large outlays. Some Ministries, which include Health and Family Welfare and Human Resource Development, receive Grant-in-Aid from the Budget, but large part of the expenditure is made to create capital assets such as IITs and AIIMS.

The Minister will meet the top management of Maharatnas and Navratnas categories of Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSEs) on Saturday.

The Minister said that many ministries have spent almost half of the budgeted capital expenditure. “Various ministries have also been asked to submit capex plan for next four quarters,” she said. Expenditure, both revenue and capital, made by the Union government provides a major boost to aggregate demand.

Total expenditure of the Centre for 2019-20 through the Budget is ₹27.86 lakh crore. Of this Capital expenditure is budgeted at ₹3.38 lakh crore (12.2 per cent) in Budget Estimate 2019-20 as against revenue expenditure of ₹24.27 lakh crore (87.8 per cent).

The Minister also took stock of the expenditure plans for the next two quarters and directedSecretaries and the Financial Advisors to closely monitor the execution of capital works and ensure that payments were released on time.

She directed that the capital expenditure must be monitored on a monthly basis to ensure that there are no slippages.

Regular payments

During the review, the Finance Minister impressed upon the Ministries and Departments that regular payments must be cleared expeditiously to spur the investment cycle. She emphasised that all efforts must be made to ensure that outstanding payments are cleared before the festival season. “We should not sit on the payments due,” she said.

Purchases made on GeM (Government e-Market) platform were also reviewed. For the purchases made by the Central government departments total payment of ₹6,533.61 crore has been released while State governments have released payments of ₹4,851 crore Ministries/Departments were advised to expeditiously clear payments since large number of vendors on GeM are MSMEs.

Expenditure Secretary GC Murmu said CPSEs had released payment of ₹20,157 crore in the last three months. He stated that Department of Expenditure would constantly monitor the progress of large infrastructure projects for the Ministries as well as the CPSEs and further follow-up meetings would be held.

 

Expenditure on track

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