NEW DELHI: The Centre’s dividend receipts from the companies it owns have exceeded the revised estimate of Rs 55,000 crore for FY25 by Rs 5,000 crore and may well reach Rs 65,000 crore by the end of the financial year, according to official sources.
Dividend receipts from central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) is one of the components of the Centre’s non-tax receipts along with other heads like “surplus” transferred by the Reserve Bank of India, and telecom spectrum receipts.
In FY25, the RE for non-tax receipts is pegged at Rs 5.31 lakh crore, with a record amount of Rs 2.11 lakh crore received from the Reserve Bank of India, and Rs 1.23 lakh crore as spectrum revenues.
Robust dividends from energy sectors like Coal India and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) have boosted non-tax receipts. So far in FY25, Coal India is the top dividend payer to the government with Rs 10,252 crore compared with Rs 9,532 crore in the previous year. Similarly, top state-run explorer ONGC has paid Rs 10,002 crore compared with Rs 7,594 crore in FY24.
With margins improving due to lower crude prices during the year, the petroleum sector as a whole has paid Rs 21,443 crore to the government so far in FY25, 11% more than Rs 19,353 crore in FY24.
In the budget presented on February 1, the government marginally revised dividend receipts from CPSEs to Rs 55,000 crore from Rs 56,260 crore in the budget estimate.
As against the budget estimate of Rs 50,000 crore, the dividends from CPSEs and other residual stakes in other firms had fetched the Centre Rs 63,749 crore in FY24, the highest in any financial year. Given the trends so far, the FY25 CPSE dividend receipts will likely set a new record.
For FY26, the Centre has estimated dividend receipts at Rs 69,000 crore assuming benign crude and other global commodity prices.
Higher dividend receipts from CPSEs and the Reserve Bank of India have cushioned the government’s fiscal deficit in recent years. Thanks to the RBI dividend of Rs 2.11 trillion as against the budget estimate of Rs 80,000-90,000 crore, the fiscal deficit for FY25 has been pegged at 4.8% of GDP in a revised estimate from 4.9% estimated earlier.
Source: The Financial Express
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