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Unleash spending to aid growth: PM to PSUs
In a first-of-its kind meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday assured full support to the heads of India’s top central public sector undertakings (CPSUs) as they asked the firms to unlock their huge cash stock pile into real investments in order to boost spending and revive economic growth.
In a first-of-its kind meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday assured full support to the heads of India’s top central public sector undertakings (CPSUs) as they asked the firms to unlock their huge cash stock pile into real investments in order to boost spending and revive economic growth.
“Our PSUs have sufficient financial muscle power to invest and push the country’s sagging economic growth,” said a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office.
“The PM wants the country’s top PSUs to route their finances into actual investments and assured them to resolve all inter-ministerial co-ordination issues.”
The PM has assured the CPSU heads that he would meet them every six months along with captains of the private sector and will look at issues coming in the way of the growth trajectories charted out by them, said sources.
The Prime Minister has also ordered the constitution of a committee under cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Seth and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to weed out the inter-ministerial issues coming in the way of investments by the PSUs.
The PSUs, which have a capital expenditure plan of Rs. 1.75 lakh crore for the current fiscal year are finding it difficult to go ahead due to various inter-ministerial bottlenecks, Arup Roy Choudhury, chairman and managing director, NTPC, told HT.
There was no discussion on disinvestments in PSUs, he added.
