Will the government be able to meet its capex target for FY25?
Live MintA month ahead of the budget presentation, the union government is considering a plan to ease conditions states to obtain 50-year interest-free loans for capital expenditure in an effort to close in on its target for 2024-25. The union government's capex, which it has used to stimulate the economy since the covid-19 pandemic, has been lacklustre this year, having hit only 48% of the budgeted amount as of November. The full budget also lowered the government's capex by 2% and increased transfers by 14% from the interim budget, highlighting the limitations of the union government in carrying out massive capex. However, going by the current average monthly capex of ₹642 billion, the union government would only be able to carry out capex worth ₹7.7 trillion. While the union government has relied heavily on capex to support growth since the pandemic, questions have been raised about the economy’s capacity to absorb massive public capex.