Finance Minister Suggested Front Loading Of Capex For Accelerated Infrastructure Development

In continuance to the drive towards accelerated capital spending and timely infrastructure development, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman chaired review meetings with Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (PNG) and Ministry of Steel (Steel) yesterday. The review meetings were attended by Secretary (Economic Affairs), Secretary (MoRTH), Secretary (MoPNG), Secretary (Steel), Joint Secretaries (Economic Affairs) amongst other officials.

During the meeting, Capital Expenditure (Capex) plans of Ministries and their CPSEs for Q3 and Q4, Capex achievements of Q1 and Q2, expenditure incurred on National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), projects undertaken through PPP, estimation of funds to be raised by asset monetization and Convergence under National Master Plan (Gati Shakti) were discussed. Noting the good progress of Capex in the three ministries, the Finance Minister suggested front-loading of Capex in third quarter of FY22 and in the first half-year of FY23.

The FM reiterated that infrastructure projects are a priority for the Government and to achieve the intended vision of the Capex stimulus given in the Union Budget, an increase of 34.5% over last year, it is essential that physical and financial projects targets are expended in the early quarters of the financial year. In the review with MoRTH, Sitharaman suggested that may shift from quarterly to monthly review of specific projects to ensure timely completion of projects.

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