Nirmala Sitharaman Asks Government Departments To Share Capex Plans For Next One Year
The finance ministry has asked government departments to share their capital expenditure plans for the next four quarters.
WATCH | Finance Minister Addresses Media After A Meeting To Review Capex By Ministries.
The union finance ministry has asked government departments to share their capital expenditure plans for the next four quarters, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday.
These departments have been asked to share their capex plans and how much money is expected to be spent on the ground, Sitharaman said, adding that this will help the government in ensuring that its expenditure plan is on track.
The government’s total expenditure for financial year 2019-20 through the budget is Rs 27.86 lakh crore. Of this, capital expenditure is budgeted at Rs 3.38 lakh crore. About Rs 2.07 lakh crore has been given to ministries and departments as grant-in-aid for creation of capital assets. Out of this 5.45 lakh crore, till August 2019, around 2.18 lakh crore has been spent, said a statement by the Finance Ministry.
Sitharaman also took stock of the expenditure plans for the next two quarters and directed that secretaries and the financial advisors must closely monitor the execution of capital works and ensure that payments are released on time to achieve the targeted capital expenditure of Rs 5.45 lakh crore, a press release issued by the Ministry of Finance said.
Sitharaman has directed officials that the capital expenditure must be monitored on a monthly basis to ensure that there are no slippages, the statement said. “At this stage, my intention is to make sure government doesn’t sit on payments which are due and government doesn’t sit on capex which it had planned. I am gearing up the government machinery,” she said.
Clearing PSU Dues
Pending dues of government departments and public sector companies worth around Rs 40,000 crore for procurement made under Government e-Marketplace and from micro, small and medium enterprises have been cleared, Expenditure Secretary GC Murmu said. Total outstanding dues of government departments and PSUs were around Rs 60,000 crore, he said.
The finance minister will meet public sector enterprises on Saturday to review their capex plans. “My intention is to have government departments clear all the pending payments to whoever it should go to,” Sitharaman said.
On Sept. 6, Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty and expenditure secretary had chaired a meeting with public sector companies to push investments.
In the meeting, the finance ministry had reviewed release of payments for procurement and other contracts without delay to infuse liquidity in a time-bound manner. The finance ministry had also said that it would develop a dashboard for government departments and central public sector enterprises to monitor progress of large infra projects.