Dividends from Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) have become a steady and robust source of revenue for the Center and are poised to exceed disbursements and the budget estimate for the financial year is likely to exceed Rs 56,000 crore. The Union Budget 2025-26 is also likely to set an ambitious target for dividends from CPSEs, which may exceed this year's budget target.
For FY25, the Center has budgeted a dividend of Rs 56,000 crore from the CPSE. Official data reveals that Rs 48,375.77 crore has already been taken as dividend from CPSE. This includes dividends from 77 CPSEs, the highest being Rs 8,073.28 crore from Coal India Ltd followed by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India Ltd which paid Rs 6,297.54 crore to the Government of India this financial year.
Seeing as CPSEs continue to perform well, dividend income will likely remain strong for the year and could top Rs 60,000 crore or more, if not more. The Centre's new dividend policy mandates a minimum dividend of 30% of profit after tax or 4% of its net worth to state-owned enterprises every year, under which every CPSE is expected to pay a minimum annual dividend. 30% of the profit after tax or 4% of its net worth, which means that dividends will provide a hearty income to the center in the coming year as well.
In the past financial years too, CPSEs' dividends have been strong and their budget targets have been exceeded. In FY24, CPSEs gave Rs 63,749.29 crore as dividend and in FY23 and FY22 they were a little over Rs 59,000 crore.
So far in this financial year, the income from the sale of shares has been as low as 8,625.05 million rupees. While the budget now does not have a separate category of receipts from PSU share sales, it has estimated Rs 50,000 crore from “miscellaneous capital receipts” in FY25 from disinvestment and asset monetization.