Overall target for capital expenditure of FY27 is over ₹8.43 lakh crore | Photo Credit: DHIRAJ SINGH

GAIL (India) Ltd leads 63 Central public sector enterprises and four other organisations in spending more than one-fourth of the annual target of capital expenditure in first two months of the fiscal year 2026-27 (FY27), data from Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) showed.

Overall target for capital expenditure of FY27 is over ₹8.43 lakh crore, while actual expenditure was over ₹1.44 lakh crore, which is over 17 per cent. However, while actual spending was over ₹81,000 crore in April, which came down to over ₹63,500 crore in May.

During the two-month period, Railway Board stood second with achieving over 25 per cent of the annual target. It was followed by NTPC, NHAI and ONGC

Growth opportunities

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 per cent of revenue, EBIDTA as per cent of revenue and asset turnover ratio.

This data has come at a time when capex of the Central government surged by over 18 per cent in April compared to the corresponding month of FY26 as reported by Controller General of Accounts (CGA). Key contributions came from railway (19 per cent of the Budget Estimates) and road (19 per cent of the Budget Estimates)

The government has set the capital expenditure during current fiscal to ₹12.21 lakh crore of which over ₹1.89 lakh crore has been spent during April. 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 intentions by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed moderation in capex during FY27, with aggregate intentions falling 16.5 per cent to ₹9.55 lakh crore from the provisional ₹11.44 lakh crore estimated for 2025-26 (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 June 11, 2026