₹8.11 lakh cr capex till Feb way short of FY25 target; highways, railways save the day

The slowdown witnessed in the central capital expenditure in the first half of the current financial year seems to taking its toll on the full-year tally. Till February, the government has managed to spend ₹8.11 lakh crore on capital expenditure, way short of the revised estimate of ₹10.18 lakh crore, announced in the budget.

This essentially means the government will have to ensure infrastructure expenditure to the tune of ₹1,97,000 crore in the month of March alone (after adjusting for infra loans disbursed) to attain the revised estimate target for the current financial year.

In fact, the government had gained tempo in terms of infrastructure spending in the month of December with record utilisation of funds worth ₹1,71,837 crore. Since then, it has waned with spending of ₹72,022 crore in January and ₹54,528 crore in the month of February.

It may be noted that among the ministries, the ministry of highways and railways have exhibited a strong utilisation of central allocation towards the capital expenditure. Till February, the ministry of highways has managed to spend ₹2,41,260 crore, which is 89% of the budgetary allocation of ₹2,72,000 crore made to the ministry.

Similarly, the ministry of railways is also inching closer to the budget allocation made to it. Out of the allocation of ₹2,52,000 crore allocated to the ministry for FY25, the ministry has spent ₹2,29,317 crore till February. Both railways and highways are likely to easily attain their budgetary expenditure targets in the fiscal. Telecom and defence, however, are lagging.