What explains Indian public sector enterprises' anaemic capex record?

Instead of public sector enterprises making capex decisions, they have declared dividends in the last few years. The capex decisions have therefore been abrogated to itself by the Centre

The remarkable rise in capital investment by the government of India over the past few years has not been matched by a corresponding increase in capex by the central public sector enterprises (PSE). 

In Budget FY24, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has projected she will spend Rs 10 trillion, following up on a spend of Rs 7.28 trillion in FY23. Taken from FY15, this is an over ten times rise, the most massive jump ever for any item in Indian public finance.

In contrast, as the table shows, the capex by all the 255 operational PSE has hardly risen. In the