CPSEs are encour­aged to take up capex to achieve prof­it­able growth in their busi­ness

The capital expenditure by 59 Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) and four organisations such as the Railway Board crossed over 33 per cent of the annual target in the first four months (April-July), data from Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) showed.

It was 28 per cent in the corresponding period of last fiscal. According to the data, 63 entities spent over ₹2.82 lakh crore in the April-July period, which is over 33 per cent of the annual target of over ₹8.43 lakh crore. During the period under consideration, the Railway Board topped in value terms, spending over ₹1.19 lakh crore, while GAIL was ahead of the others in terms of percentage of the target achieved at over 60 per cent.

CPSEs are encour­aged to take up capex to achieve prof­it­able growth in their busi­ness. A large capex cre­ates growth oppor­tun­it­ies and fur­ther employ­ment. Sev­eral key per­form­ance indic­at­ors (KPIs) have been included in the annual MoU frame­work for CPSE eval­u­ation. This includes capex, return on net­worth or return on cap­ital employed, export and import as a percentage of rev­enue, EBIDTA as percentage of rev­enue and asset turnover ratio.

This data comes at a time when the capex of the Cent­ral gov­ern­ment surged by around 24 per cent in April-June period, compared to the corresponding month of FY26 as reported by Controller General of Accounts (CGA). Key contributions came from railway (35 per cent of the Budget Estimates) and road (22 per cent of the BE).

The government has set the capital expenditure for the current fiscal at ₹12.21 lakh crore, of which over ₹3.40 lakh crore has been spent in April-June. Higher spend­ing by infra­struc­ture min­is­tries is expec­ted to have a pos­it­ive impact on the over­all growth num­ber.

Higher spend­ing by CPSEs and gov­ern­ment organ­isa­tions are crit­ical as not much improve­ment is seen in the private capex. It may be noted that a for­ward-look­ing sur­vey on private capex invest­ment by the Min­istry of Stat­ist­ics and Pro­gramme Imple­ment­a­tion showed moderation in capex in FY27, with aggregate intentions falling 16.5 per cent to ₹9.55 lakh crore from the provisional ₹11.44 lakh crore estimated for FY26.

This is, according to the second forward-looking survey on private corporate sector capex investment intentions, covering October–December 2025. The implied 16.5 per cent decline in planned new-asset spending among the 5,366 large enterprises surveyed signals a more cautious investment stance, even as per-enterprise capex on new assets is projected to edge up from ₹79.4 crore in FY26 to ₹85.2 crore in FY27.

Published on August 6, 2026