Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday exhorted large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) to exceed their planned capital expenditure (Capex) target for 2020-21 by March to accelerate economic growth hit by the COVID-19 crisis.

She held a virtual meeting with secretaries of power, mines and atomic energy along with the chairman and managing directors (CMDs) of 10 CPSEs, belonging to these ministries, an official statement said.

This was the fifth in the ongoing series of meetings that the finance minister is having with various stakeholders to boost the economic growth amid the pandemic.

While reviewing the performance of CPSEs, Sitharaman said that Capex by CPSEs is a critical driver of economic growth and need to be scaled up for the 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Appreciating the efforts of the ministries and CPSEs for making visible efforts to meet the capital expenditure targets, the finance minister said that "more efforts are still required to achieve the target of 75 per cent CAPEX by Q3 and more than 100 per cent by Q4 of the FY'21".

The overall achievement as on November 23, 2020, is Rs 24,227 crore (39.4 per cent) against the Capex target for 2020-21 - Rs 61,483 crore, the statement said.

Sitharaman encouraged the CPSEs to perform better to achieve targets and to ensure that the capital outlay provided to them for the year 2020-21 is spent properly and within time.

The finance minister said the better performance of CPSEs can help the economy in a big way to recover from the impact of COVID-19.

Sitharaman asked the secretaries to closely monitor the performance of CPSEs to ensure to achieve the Capex targets and make plans for it.

She also asked them to proactively sort out the unresolved issues of the CPSEs.