Spent 66% Of Rs 3.38 Lakh Crore Budgeted Expenditure: Economic Advisor

Detailing steps undertaken by the government on reviving the country's economy, which grew at 4.5 per cent in the July-September period to mark its slowest pace in over six years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday,"results of some measures have started showing."

Addressing the media on steps taken by the government, Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said 66 per cent of Rs 3.38 lakh crore budgeted expenditure has already been spent by the government.

Select Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs), which include 32 Maharatnas and Navratnas, have undertaken capital expenditure of Rs 98,000 crore till November 2019 and are projected to undertake expenditure of Rs 60,000 crore in the remaining part of the year, Mr Subramanian said.

Indian Railways and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways are projected to undertake capital expenditure of Rs 2.46 lakh crore by December 31, 2019, Mr Subramanian added.

To enable cash flow in the system, Mr Subramanian said most of the Maharatnas and Navaratnas have set up online bill tracking system to reduce pendency in bill payments and accounts payable by CPSEs, which currently stands at less than Rs 5,000 crore.

Mr Subramanian also highlighted that the RBI guidelines mandating banks to launch lending rates linked to external benchmarks has led state-run banks to launch repo rate-linked loan products and more than 8 lakh repo rate linked-loans amounting to Rs 72,201 crore have been sanctioned as on November 27.

India received record foreign direct investment (FDI) of $35 billion in fist half of the current financial year compared to $31 billion in first half of 2018-19, which is a very good sign of how foreigners are seeing India as an investment destination, he added.