Jaitley reviews PSUs’ capital expenditure programme -Governance Now

Jaitley reviews PSUs’ capital expenditure programme

CPSEs’ chiefs say they are on track for achieving the capital expenditure of Rs 3.85 lakh crore

GN Bureau | September 29, 2017

#PSU #Arun Jaitley #capital expenditure #debt

Finance minister Arun Jaitley reviewed capital expenditure programme and status of dividend distribution of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) with secretaries of key ministries including petroleum, defence, power, road transport, railways, coal, mines, steel, atomic energy.

Jaitley stressed that the CPSEs should not only complete their budgeted capital expenditure but also aggressively push capital expenditure to boost investment in the Indian economy.

Senior officials from the key ministries and PSUs’ chiefs apprised Jaitley that their capital expenditure programme for the current year are completely on track for achieving the capital expenditure of Rs 3.85 lakh crore budgeted in 2017-18.

Some PSUs informed that they were planning to increase their capital expenditure programme, which in the aggregate, might be of the order of additional Rs 25,000 crore.

The minister assured that the government would make available adequate resources but no slackness under any circumstances would be acceptable. He indicated that the capital expenditure programme would again be reviewed by either November or December.

During the meeting, it was found that most of the PSUs have very low or no debt on their balance sheet which is reflected in their low debt to equity ratios. CPSEs were, therefore, asked to raise more debt and not to rely entirely on cash and free reserves for finding new investments and capital expenditure.

Finance secretary Ashok Lavasa advised the CPSEs to release outstanding payments expeditiously to help improve the liquidity in the market.

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