40% of budgeted Rs 5.45 lakh crore capex released in just 5 months, says Nirmala Sitharaman

The government's capex plan for financial year 2019/20 is moving well on track. 40 per cent of the budgeted Rs 5.45 lakh crore has already been released as of August, informed finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday after a meeting with secretaries of various ministries.

The FM 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.

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Sitharaman directed that the capital expenditure must be monitored on a monthly basis to ensure that there are no slippages. In the previous year, the total government capex by August was 42 per cent of the budgeted target.

The FM said that the idea behind the meeting was to ensure that all outstanding dues for services received and goods supplied to the ministries are cleared on time.

It also reviewed purchases made on GeM platform. The Central government departments have released Rs 6533.61 crore for their purchases, while state governments have released Rs 4,851 crore. Ministries/ departments were advised to expeditiously clear payments since large number of vendors on GeM are MSMEs.

G C Murmu, Secretary (Expenditure), also informed that CPSEs have released payments worth Rs 20,157 crore over the last three months. He stated that the Department of Expenditure will constantly monitor the progress of large infrastructure projects for ministries as well as CPSEs and that follow-up meetings will be held.  

The expenditure secretary also informed that of the Rs 60,000 crore outstanding payments to MSMEs, Rs 40,000 crore has already been released since the government first announced to expedite payments of such dues on August 24.

On the issue of GST refunds of MSMEs, the FM said that so far 90 per cent of the refunds have been made. On August 24, the FM had announced that GST refunds of MSMEs would be made within 30 days.

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