Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, yesterday held meeting, through Video Conference, with Secretaries of Ministries of Petroleum & Natural Gas , Power , Coal , Mines and D/o Atomic Energy and the CMDs of 23 CPSEs belonging to these Ministries. This meeting was held as part of the series of meetings that the Finance Minister is having with various stakeholders to accelerate the economic growth.

In FY 2019-20, against the CAPEX target of ₹ 1,64,822 crore for the 23 CPSEs, the achievement was ₹ 1,66,029 crore i.e. 101%. Q1 (FY 2019-20) achievement was ₹ 26,320 crore (16%) and achievement of Q1 (FY 2020-21) is ₹ 20,202 crore (12%). CAPEX target for 2020-21 is ₹ 1,65,510 crore.

While reviewing the performance of CPSEs, the Finance Minister said that CPSEs have a very important role in giving a push to the growth of the Indian economy. She encouraged the CPSEs 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. The Finance Minister said that better performance of CPSEs can help the economy in a big way to recover from the impact of Covid 19.

The Finance Minister asked the Secretaries to closely monitor the performance of CPSEs in order to ensure capital expenditure to the tune of 50% of capital outlay by Q2 2020-21 and make plan for it. She stated that unresolved issues should be flagged immediately to the DEA/DPE for immediate solution.

The Ministries/ CPSEs discussed constraints being faced by them due to COVID 19 like problems of availability of manpower, delay in imports, delay in payments by DISCOMs on the dues of CPSEs like NPCIL and NLC. Smt Sitharaman 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.

Capital expenditure oversight to ensure timely CPSE spending and escalation of unresolved implementation issues for economic recovery. The Minister directed assessment of CAPEX performance of 23 CPSEs, emphasising that CPSEs must utilise allocated capital outlay within the year and address pandemic-related impediments to project execution. Secretaries and CPSEs were instructed to monitor spending closely, plan to ensure 50% utilisation of capital outlay by Q2, and escalate unresolved implementation issues to DEA/DPE for prompt resolution to support economic recovery.