Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the ministries with major infrastructure spend have been told to clear all non-litigated pending dues to MSMEs and service providers. Even the little pending payments should be cleared, she added. It comes after Finance Minister met with the secretaries and financial advisors of key selected ministries to review the total capital expenditure by the ministries in FY20 so far. The capital expenditure spend for the next two quarters has been discussed in the meeting today with the 21 ministries with major infrastructure spend, she added. Speaking at the conference, expenditure secretary GC Murmu said that the total capex spend stands at 42 per cen so far till August this year. He also said that the government’s capex is on track. The government sould know about he capex spend by each ministry in a week, she noted. Finance Minister will meet CPSEs tomorrow on capex spend.
Earlier this month, the Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty and Expenditure Secretary Girish Chandra Murmu held a meeting with officials from the ministries of road transport and highways, railways, telecom, and housing and urban affairs to review their capital expenditure programme.
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Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that the demand is picking up in the economy and there is no issue of liquidity. “On the whole, it was very tonic-like meeting, where I heard a lot of positive things. Not one voice said there was a concern, shortfall of demand. None of them voiced liquidity concerns,” she said. Things are expected to get better in the later half of the year, Nirmala Sitharaman said.