The Union government has again chosen capital expenditure as a key focus area in the 2023-24 Union Budget. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Wednesday said that the Centre will continue its 50-year interest-free loans to state governments for an additional 12 months in order to aid infrastructure investment with an outlay of Rs 1.3 lakh crore. The Centre’s capital expenditure outlay will be Rs 10 lakh crore for FY24, an increase of 33 per cent year-on-year, she said.
The government, however, has fallen short of exhausting its Budget estimate for capital expenditure for this financial year. The revised estimate for 2022-23 for effective capital expenditure stands at Rs 10.53 lakh crore, which is 98.7 per cent of the Budget estimate of Rs 10.67 lakh crore.
