Sitharaman wants monthly review of MoRTH projects
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has called for front-loading of Capital Expenditure (Capex) in third quarter of FY22 and in the first half-year of FY23 for progressing with projects under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (PNG) and Ministry of Steel (Steel).
She made the call during a review of projects under the three ministries on 2 Nov 2021.
Sitharaman reiterated that infrastructure projects are a priority for the Government and to achieve the intended vision of the Capex stimulus given in the Union Budget, an increase of 34.5% over last year, it is essential that physical and financial projects targets are expended in the early quarters of the financial year.
She suggested monthly review instead of quarterly for timely completion of MoRTH projects.
In her review of PNG, the Minister pointed out that since refineries are key infrastructure assets essential to economic growth, their progress forms important part of infrastructure sector.
Sitharaman noted that the steel sector has great potential and will benefit from recently launched Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) for specialty steel production.
The review covered Capex plans of Ministries and their CPSEs for Q3 and Q4, Capex achievements of Q1 and Q2, expenditure incurred on National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), projects undertaken through PPP, estimation of funds to be raised by asset monetization and Convergence under National Master Plan (Gati Shakti).
The review meetings started in the last week of October 2021. It was the Minister’s third review covering MoRTH, PNG and Steel. #tenders #projects #investment #infrastructure /fiinews.com
