MUMBAI, Aug. 27 -- The number that mattered most in India's investment ledger this month was not the 18-percent profit growth the Nifty 50 posted in Q1 FY27. It was Rs 26.75 trillion - the total value of investment proposals registered between April 1 and August 5 in this fiscal year, according to a Bank of Baroda Economics Research Department report. Eighty-six percent of that figure came from domestic private companies.

The private sector, in other words, is spending at a pace that matches the government's ambition.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Union Budget 2026 set capital expenditure at Rs 12.2 lakh crore, a record allocation representing a nearly nine-percent increase over FY26 revised estimates and equivalent to 3.1 perce...