Statsguru: Six charts show India's infrastructure projects in a slow lane

The government is enthusiastic about its national infrastructure pipeline and the plan to infuse Rs 111 trillion till 2024-25, but it needs to brace to shell out much more for these projects. The latest report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) shows that cost overruns for 1,670 projects, worth more than Rs 150 crore value, were on an average 20 per cent.

Larger projects (worth more than Rs 1,000 crore) faced higher cost overruns, as the anticipated cost exceeded the original by a quarter (chart 1).

Time overruns were also high, and a third of total projects faced delays. These projects had a combined value of Rs 12.1 trillion until September 2021, against the original envisaged cost of Rs 9.2 trillion (chart 2).

While the government is giving an impetus to infrastructure development in the Northeast, the region faced the highest cost overruns for central projects; Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal also had a higher ratio than the national average (chart 3).

Among sectors, water, telecom and Railways faced the highest cost overruns. In water resources, the anticipated costs were 184 per cent higher than the original, whereas in telecom and Railways the difference was 81 per cent and 53 per cent, respectively (chart 4).

Further, a Business Standard analysis of MOSPI data shows that in 8.4 per cent of projects, the expenditure was higher even than the anticipated cost; the corresponding ratio for expenditure exceeding the original cost was 10 per cent (chart 5).

Roads were the worst performing sector in this class, followed by urban development and Railways. In terms of time overruns, nearly 530 projects were delayed for more than six months. Among these, more than half were delayed for over two years. The average time of delay in Railways was 69 months or nearly 6 years. There were 147 road projects delayed for over six months, and the average time of delay was 46 months or nearly four years (chart 6).

StatsGuru is a weekly feature. Every Monday, Business Standard guides you through the numbers you need to know to make sense of the headlines