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Finance minister P Chidambaram is scheduled to meet heads of major public sector units tomorrow. He is expected to nudge them to invest surplus funds to perk up the economy whose growth crawled to a decade low in 2012-13 and a four-year bottom in the first quarter of this financial year. Or else, he may ask them to make the exchequer fatter by giving higher dividend.
"The Finance Minister will meet the chiefs of PSUs tomorrow and will be discussing various issues, including dividend payment and investment of surplus funds," a senior finance ministry official said.
The meeting was to take place today, but was later put off for tomorrow, the official said.
Currently, excess funds of some PSUs are estimated at around Rs 2.8 lakh crore.
"Obviously, the surpluses of public sector enterprises cannot lie in a bank. The surpluses have to be invested, either they (CPSEs) invest or they give it to somebody who can invest it," Chidambaram had said in an interview with the Press Trust of India here.
India's economic growth declined to five% in 2012-13, which was the lowest GDP expansion in ten years. This year, most independent analysis did not expect the economy to grow even this much. The economy expanded 4.4% in the first quarter of 2013-14, which was the slowest growth in four years.
At a time, when the government cannot provide stimulus to the industry as it faces a challenge of restricting the Centre's fiscal deficit at 4.8% of GDP, PSU's investible surplus can come to the aid of sluggish economy.
Higher dividend by PSUs, on the other hand, may help the government narrow fiscal deficit. The deficit has widened to 75% of the Budget Estimate in just five months of the current financial year.
The government expects to raise Rs 73,866 crore from dividends in the current financial year against Rs 55,443 in the previous financial year.
