Despite the heavy lifting by the coal and mining sectors, the Indian Railways alone may fall short of its annual target by ₹28,000 crore, according to an internal finance ministry review.
“The asset monetisation may fall short by regarding ₹55,000 crore… The ministry of railways, department of telecom and ministry of petroleum, oil and gas has indicated it may miss the target by wide margins,” a senior official privy to an internal review by the Department of Public Enterprises last week told ET.
The Centre has raised ₹29,000 crore from asset monetisation so far in 2022-23, of which mines and coal ministries account for ₹17,000 crore.
The official said the road transport and highways ministry will be closer to its target of ₹32,855 crore, whereas the ministries of coal, mines and shipping and ports will exceed their target. The railways ministry was given a target of ₹57,222 crore, which included last year’s backlog of ₹17,000 crore since it might raise only ₹800 crore in 2021-22. During a review meeting in November 2022, it said it would be able to raise only ₹30,000 crore in this fiscal.
In the meeting, the target was scaled down to ₹1.24 lakh crore, down by ₹34,000 crore, but in the February review even this was found to be difficult to achieve, falling short by ₹21,000 crore.
The coal and mining ministries were asked to do more following the November review and their targets were revised upwards to ₹37,500 crore from earlier ₹6,060 crore, setting the total monetisation target at ₹1.62 lakh crore.However, the official said, in the latest internal review, the railways ministry indicated that it had achieved monetisation of assets worth ₹1,830 crore till February 15.
The Department of Telecommunications was given a target of Rs 20,180 crore for monetisation, but it has not been able to monetise any assets. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas is likely to raise Rs 2,000 crore by the year-end.
In 2021-22, coal and mining ministries raised Rs 58,000 crore once morest the target of Rs 3,394 crore, helping the Centre exceed its target of Rs 88,000 crore and raise Rs 1 lakh crore.
“We expect the target by the coal and mining sectors to be above Rs 50,000 crore for this year also,” the official said, adding that some of the projects will be carried forward to the next fiscal.
