Stalled 241 infra projects cause cost overrun of Rs 1.6 lakh crore

Out of the 1,076 projects, 4 projects are ahead of schedule, 252 are on schedule and 330 are delayed

As many as 241 infrastructure projects including those delayed due to land acquisition, forest clearances and other reasons, have led to cost overrun of Rs 1.59 lakh crore, as per official data.

The Statistics Ministry monitored 1,076 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 150 crore or more across sectors such as power, railways and roads in May, 2016.

It said that out of the 1,076 projects, 4 projects are ahead of schedule, 252 are on schedule, 330 are delayed, 241 projects reported cost overrun and 70 projects reported both time and cost overrun with respect to their original project implementation schedules.

"Total original cost of implementation of the 1,076 projects was 12,69,688.04 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be 14,28,703.39 crore, which reflects overall cost overruns of 1,59,015.35 crore (12.52% of original cost)," according to the project monitoring report for May, 2016.

As per report, the expenditure incurred on these projects till May 2016 is Rs 5,75,248.27 crore, which is 40.26 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

The report further stated, "The number of delayed projects decreases to 288 if delay is calculated on the basis of latest schedule of completion. Further, 41 projects have been sanctioned without original commissioning date and for 449 projects neither the year of commissioning nor the tentative gestation period has been reported."

Out of 330 delayed projects, 63 projects have overall delay in the range of 1 to 12 months, 59 projects have delay in the range of 13 to 24 months, 142 projects have delay in the range of 25 to 60 months and 66 projects have delay of 61 months and above, it added.

It also said that in comparison to April 2016, number of projects reporting cost overruns has gone down from 22.71 per cent to 22.40 per cent whereas projects reporting time overruns have decreased from 30.73 per cent to 30.67 per cent.

In April 2016, out of 1061 projects on the monitor of Statistics Ministry, 241 projects reported cost overruns and 326 projects reported time overruns, while during May 2016, out of 1,076 projects, 241 projects reported cost overruns and 330 projects reported time overruns.

Speedy implementation of projects assumes significance in view of government's push to move towards high growth trajectory of over 8% and touch double digit mark in few years.