There was a wide variation of capex growth in the first six months of the current financial year by the top ten states in terms of tax devolution. For instance, while Odisha saw its capex grow by just 12.58 per cent year-on-year, Uttar Pradesh witnessed a 563 per cent rise. The base of the previous year was low, so the growth should be unusually high.

       Even then, Andhra Pradesh saw a fall of 30 per cent in capex. To get a real sense of capex growth, one should compare it with the first six months of pre-Covid period of 2019-20. Here also, growth varies widely in the ...