The Capex for the month of December alone increased by 9.28% to Rs 70,000 crore, with many enterprises exceeding their annual budget target.
The growth was led by the Railway board and National Highway Authority of India(NHAI) as they remained the highest spenders.
The Railway Board led with capital expenditure of about Rs 94 lakh crore during the year so far, while NHAI spent around Rs 1.48 lakh crore, together accounting for a substantial share of the total outlay by the public sector.
Among major CPSEs, power and energy sector enterprises led the momentum with NTPC(Rs 28,796 crore), Hindustan petroleum (Rs 22,403 crore) and Neyveli Lignite Corporation India Limited (Rs 6,243 crore) exceeding their annual target, while Powergrid (Rs 24,770 crore) and Oil India Ltd (Rs 6,401) achieved 99% and 97% of their annual target already.
Other key spenders include India oil (Rs 27,703 crore) and ONGC (Rs 24,607 crore). The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation has also reported significant progress, spending Rs 3,640 crore against an annual target of Rs 786 crore, far exceeding its original budget estimates.
With one more quarter to go, officials expect the CPSEs capex to exceed the budget target by a fair margin.Higher public sector investment has been a key pillar of the government’s growth strategy, particularly at a time when private sector investment is picking up at a slow pace.
The data records CPSEs and four government entities with an annual capex target of at least Rs 100 crore.