LARGE PSUS SPEND OVER ₹50,000 CR IN CAPEX IN APRIL

NEW DELHI: Large public sector companies have spent a little over ₹50,200 crore towards capital expenditure in the month of April in financial year 2024-25 alone, which is 6.46% of their full fiscal target of ₹7.77 lakh crore, an official said.

The pace albeit is slower than ₹54,177 crore capex spent in April FY24, about 7.3% of the full year budget target of ₹7.42 lakh crore.

“The capex spending will pick up going forward. Also, the numbers for April are still provisional and will go up in the revised final numbers,” the official told PTI.

The capital expenditure during the first month of 2024-25 fiscal was driven by railways, road, and oil and gas sectors.

The Indian Railways and sector PSUs spent ₹26,641 crore in April, followed by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) at Rs 6,645 crore.

Among oil and gas sector public sector undertakings, ONGC incurred capex of ₹2,318 crore, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) ₹2,423 crore in the first month of the current financial year.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd spent ₹1,155 crore and ₹417 crore, respectively in April.

Power sector PSU NTPC spent ₹2,083 crore.

The finance ministry tracks capital expenditure of public sector undertakings (PSUs) that have an annual investment target of over ₹100 crore.

The Interim Budget for 2024-25 set a cumulative capital expenditure target of ₹9.01 lakh crore for all public sector undertakings.

Of this, ₹7.77 lakh crore worth capex is to be spent by PSUs with over ₹100 crore of annual capital expenditure target.

In 2023-24, large PSUs spent ₹8.05 lakh crore towards capex, exceeding the budget target of ₹7.42 lakh crore.