Swachh Bharat: 73 PSEs spent Rs 1,019 crore on clean India mission in 2017-18

Seventy three central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) were nudged by their administrative department - the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) - to spend over Rs 1,000 crore towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project Swachh Bharat (SB) in 2017-18, apex auditor Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said.

The General Purpose Financial Report of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) Union Government (Commercial) - No. 18 of 2019 of the CAG laid in Parliament on December 10 put the exact figure at Rs 1,019.16 crore, which is 30.52 per cent of total Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spend.

The DPE had asked CPSEs to spend 33 per cent of their CSR funds towards SB with a mission to clean India by October 2019. The CSR review for 2017-18 covered 82 CPSEs (7 Maharatna, 14 Navratna, 44 Miniratna and 17 others) under the administrative control of 10 Ministries/Departments.

Also Read: PM Modi gets Global Goalkeeper Award for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan; dedicates it to 130 crore Indians

However, the government investment in CPSEs had gone up during the year. The accounts of 420 government companies and corporations indicated that the Government of India had an investment of Rs 3,57,064 crore in share capital. The loans given by the Centre outstanding as on 31 March 2018 amounted to Rs 88,479 crore. Compared to the previous year, investment by the GoI in equity of CPSEs registered a net increase of Rs 35,038 crore and loans outstanding increased by Rs 5,978 crore during 2017-18, the report said.

There were 158 CPSEs that incurred losses during the year 2017-18. The losses incurred by these companies during the year 2017-18 amounted to Rs 41,420 crore compared to Rs 33,574 crore in 2016-17. There were 184 government companies and corporations with accumulated losses of Rs 1, 42,309.28 crore as on 31 March 2018. Of these, the net worth of 77 companies had been completely eroded by accumulated losses. As a result, the aggregate net worth of these companies had become negative to the extent of Rs 83, 122.38 crore as on 31 March 2018. Only 12 out of these 77 companies earned a profit of Rs 1344.45 crore during the year 2017-18, the report said.

Also Read: Personal Data Protection Bill: Good news for search engines, start-ups; key things to know

The report enumerates the status of adherence by Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) to the provisions of the Companies Act, 2013; guidelines issued by Securities Exchange Board of India and Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) on Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility, Analysis of Memoranda of Understanding between Administrative Ministries and CPSEs, Impact of Implementation of Indian Accounting Standards (under Phase-II) in selected CPSEs, Expenditure on Research and Development by CPSEs, and Disinvestment in CPSEs.