Parul
As per news reports, the government has set October 15 as the deadline for central PSUs to clear overdue payments to contractors and vendors as it looks to lift economic growth from six-year low by boosting expenditure.
Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has reviewed capital spending programmes with heads of central public sector enterprises. The minister quoted that the state-owned companies have also been asked to set up a portal by October 15 where vendors, service providers and contractors can track bills and payments so that liquidity crunch is mitigated.
In fact, public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been asked to detail lifespan of arbitrations that lock payments after disputes with vendors and contractors, the finance minister said, adding the state-owned firms have also been asked to submit spending plans for the next four quarters.
Finance Secretary, Rajiv Kumar quoted that 34 central PSUs have already spent ₹ 48,077 crore till August and have detailed spending of another ₹ 50,159 crore till December 2019.
Another ₹ 54,700 crore would be spent in the January-March quarter. In fact, expenditure secretary, Girish Chandra Murmu, said that capex of all the 242-odd PSUs will be over ₹ 4 lakh crore.
