Rs 40,000 Crore MSMEs Due Cleared, Remaining to be Paid by October, Says Nirmala Sitharaman

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said various ministries have cleared Rs 40,000 crore out of Rs 60,000 crore due mainly to MSMEs for supply of goods and services, and the remaining amount not locked in litigation too will be paid by the first week of next month.

The minister also said that ministries and departments have been asked to provide their detailed capital expenditure plans for the next four quarters as the government looks to boost growth by giving a push to spending.

"Government should not sit on overdue payments...The idea here is to ensure that there are no outstanding dues to services and goods supplied to different departments.

"My intention is to have government departments clear all pending payments whoever it should go," she said after meeting top officials of 21 key infrastructure ministries.

The meeting assumes significance as the government is taking various steps, including a big reduction in corporate tax rates, to push the economic growth that slowed to a six-year low of 5 percent during the first quarter of the current fiscal.

Expenditure Secretary GC Murmu, who was also present at the press conference, said the most infrastructure ministries have reached 50 percent of their capex target for the current fiscal.

Expenditures, both revenue and capital, made by the Union government provides a major boost to aggregate demand.

Total expenditure projection of the central government for 2019-20 as per the Budget is Rs 27.86 lakh crore.

Of this, capital expenditure is budgeted at Rs 3.38 lakh crore.

The finance minister said the government's capital expenditure was on track and Budget estimates would be met.

She further said the consumption was on the rise and credit offtake was growing, which together should result in "bouyancy" in the economy.

To a query on the fiscal discipline with rebate in corporate tax and expenditure, the minister said the government will reconcile fiscal deficit numbers later.

The finance minister will be meeting heads of public sector enterprises on Saturday to review capital expenditure plans.

Giving details, Murmu said apart from the budgeted allocation under capital head of Rs 3.38 lakh crore for 2019-20, the total amount given to ministries/ departments as Grant in Aid (GIA) for creation of capital assets amounts to Rs 2.07 lakh crore.

Thus the total amount available for CAPEX for 2019-20 is Rs 5.45 lakh crore and the total CAPEX till August under capital head has been reported at Rs 1.36 lakh crore (40.28 percent) and that under GIA has been reported at Rs 0.82 lakh crore (39.7 percent) totalling Rs 2.18 lakh crore (40 percent), he added.

Apart from Gross Budgetary Support (GBS), ministries have been sanctioned Rs 0.57 lakh crore extra budgetary resource (EBR), out of which Rs 0.46 lakh crore has been approved.

EBR expenditure also adds to the overall capital expenditure of the government, he added.

"Capital expenditure is on track and we will absolutely achieve 100 per cent of the budget estimates," the secretary added.

He informed that meetings with the ministries/departments to assess revised estimates for 2019-20 and the budget estimates for 2020-21 would be initiated from the middle of October 2019.

The finance minister along with senior officials will be meeting heads of public sector enterprises on Saturday to review capital expenditure plans.