New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday called upon the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) to improve their performance, as this would eventually help the Indian economy recover from the slowdown induced by the coronavirus pandemic The minister on Friday reviewed the capital expenditure of seven CPSEs for the current financial year (2020-21).She held the review meeting, through video conference, with the Secretaries of the Ministries of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Housing and Urban Affairs, Defence and the Department of Telecommunications, along with the CMDs of the CPSEs belonging to these ministries, said an official statement.This was the third in the ongoing series of meetings that the Finance Minister is having with various stakeholders to accelerate the economic growth against the background of the pandemic.Sitharaman asked the Secretaries concerned to closely monitor the performance of CPSEs in order to ensure capital expenditure to the tune of 50 per cent of capital outlay by the end of Q2 of FY 2020-21 and make appropriate plans for it.The combined capex target for FY 2020-21 for these seven CPSEs is Rs 1,24,825 crore. In FY 2019-20, against the capex target of Rs 1,29,821 crore for these CPSEs, the achievement was Rs 1,14,730 crore, or 88.37 per cent of the target.During Q1 of FY 2019-20, the achievement was Rs 20,172 crore, or 15.53 per cent of the target, and achievement up to July 2020 (FY 2020-21) is Rs 24,933 crore, or 20 per cent of the target. "While mentioning the significant role of CPSEs in giving a push to the growth of the Indian economy, the Finance Minister encouraged the CPSEs to perform better to achieve their targets and to ensure that the capital outlay provided to them for the financial year 2020-21 is spent properly and within time," the Finance Ministry statement said.The CPSEs also discussed constraints being faced by the CPSEs, especially due to the pandemic.

Source: Economic Times August 15, 2020 03:10 UTC