The Finance Minister asked the Ministries and their CPSEs to ensure clearance of MSME’s dues at the earliest

While reviewing the capital expenditure performance of the Ministries, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday emphasized that enhanced Capital Expenditure Plans will play a critical role in revitalising the economy post pandemic and encouraged the Ministries to front-load their capital expenditure.

She said the Budget for Financial Year 2021-22 provided a capital outlay of Rs.5.54 lakh crore, a sharp increase of 34.5% over the Budget Estimate of 2020-21. However, the efforts from the budgetary side to increase the capital expenditure have to be complemented by the Public Sector Enterprises, she added.

The Finance Minister also highlighted that the infrastructure expenditure is not just central government budgetary expenditure on infrastructure and includes infrastructures pending by state governments and the private sector. It also includes government expenditure through extra-budgetary resources.

Therefore, Ministries are to actively work on getting projects funded through innovative structuring and financing and provide all support to the private sector for enhancing infrastructure spending, the Finance Minister said, adding that the Ministries also need to explore PPP mode for viable projects.

The Finance Minister also asked the Ministries and their CPSEs to ensure clearance of MSME’s dues at the earliest.

While concluding, the Finance Minister also requested the Secretaries of Ministries to push expenditure on large important projects to ensure that the achievement is commensurate with timelines.

She also asked the Ministries to take up regular reviews of sector-specific projects with the concerned State governments for effective implementation of the same. The Finance Minister said that she will continue to hold regular review meetings with all ministries/departments.