New Delhi, Nov 27 (UNI) Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman here

here on Friday held video conference with Secretaries of the Ministries of Power, Mines and Department of Atomic Energy and the CMDs of 10 CPSEs belonging to these Ministries, to review the capital expenditure (CAPEX) in this financial year.

This was the fifth in the ongoing series of meetings that the Finance Minister is having with various stakeholders to accelerate the economic growth in the background of COVID – 19 pandemic.

The overall achievement as on November 23 is Rs 24227 crore (39.4 per cent) against the CAPEX target for 2020-21 i.e. Rs 61483 crore, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement here.

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

The Finance Minister appreciated the efforts of the Ministries and CPSEs for making visible efforts to meet out the CAPEX targets.

However, Ms Sitharaman 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 Finance Minister 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.

Ms Sitharaman asked the Secretaries to closely monitor the performance of CPSEs in order to

ensure to achieve the target of CAPEX and make plan for it.

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

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