Nirmala Sitharaman reviews progress on National Monetisation Pipeline

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took stock of the progress made by ministries and departments on the National Monetisation Pipeline. The minister said ministries should push ahead with asset monetisation in line with their set of targets. A government official said that while some ministries may miss their monetisation goals, the government will more or less meet the target this year. The government's goal for the current fiscal year is to raise 1.62 lakh crore from asset monetisation. The last fiscal year, it had completed transactions worth 96,000 crore, surpassing the target of 88,000 crore. The minister asked ministries of petroleum and natural gas and railways to reform their strategies to hasten monetisation, according to people familiar with the deliberations of the review meeting. One person said that the ministry of petroleum and natural gas has been asked to come up with a new plan within a week. A top finance ministry officials, Niti Aayog and key infrastructure ministries attended the meeting. The review meeting is important as the Centre is working on preparations for the next union budget. Achieving the target is important to push for more capital expenditure and stick to the fiscal path. Auctions of mines, road assets and power sector assets have been a major factor in asset monetisation. The ministries of petroleum and natural gas and railways missed their targets last fiscal year.