new delhi finance minister nirmala sitharaman on monday began a fresh exercise to assess the capital expenditure plans of government departments and public sector entities during the current financial year to ensure that they use up their annual allocation while asking them to keep a robust pipeline ready for the next year too on monday sitharaman met officials from the civil aviation ministry and the department of telecommunication dot where she reiterated that infrastructure projects are a priority for the government and necessary funds will be made available for capex the government wants to keep close tabs on infrastructure spending which includes not just the centres budgetary expenditure on the sector but also those by the states and the private sectorin the budget the centre had increased capex by 35 to rs 55 lakh crore during the current fiscal year as part of efforts to revive demand across core industries such as cement and steel and boost economic activity latest numbers released by the controller general of accounts showed that up to august capex had gone up 41 to top rs 17 lakh crore which is almost a third of the full year targeta higher capex was part of a strategy to rev up the economy hit hard by pandemic which resulted in private sector going slow on fresh investments due to lower demand during the meeting capex status of q1 and q2 frontloading of capex estimated targets of capital spending by ministries and their central public sector enterprises in the upcoming quarters of current financial year expenditure incurred for implementation of national infrastructure pipeline nip projects estimation of funds to be raised by asset monetisation projects undertaken through ppp and convergence under national master plan gati shakti were discussed an official statement saidthe finance minister is due to meet other departments and ministries in the coming days an official said adding that this is a followup to earlier discussions undertaken by sitharaman