101 infra projects see Rs 1.29 lakh crore in cost overruns

As many as 101 infrastructure projects sized Rs 1,000-crore and above have reported a cost overrun of Rs 1.29 lakh crore, as per official data.

The Statistics Ministry monitored 286 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 1,000 crore or more across sectors such as power, railways and roads in April 2016.

"The total original cost of the 286 projects was about Rs 9,40,160.86 crore and latest reported anticipated completion cost is Rs 10,69,547.02 crore, which reflects an overall cost overrun of Rs 1,29,386.16 crore," according to the latest report for April.

As per the report, out of the 286 projects, 2 projects are ahead of schedule, 54 are on schedule, 123 delayed and 101 projects reported cost overrun and 41 projects reported both time and cost overrun with respect to their original project implementation schedules.

During the reference month, out of 286 projects, 123 projects are delayed with respect to original schedule and 31 projects have reported additional delay vis-?-vis the date of completion reported in the previous month (March, 2016).

The report stated that the additional delay is in the range of 1 to 13 months in respect of projects relating to power, petroleum, urban development and road transport & highways sectors.

It said the expenditure incurred on these projects till April is Rs 4,57,160.26 crore. Out of 286 projects, 101 projects have cost overruns with respect to original cost.

Cost overrun of these is 101.72 per cent while during the last month, it was 103.84 per cent in 100 projects out of 278 monitored projects.

In comparison with the last month, the number of projects reporting cost overruns decreases from 35.97 per cent to 35.31 per cent, it said.

Out of 123 delayed projects, 22 projects have overall delay in the range of 1 to 12 months, 18 projects have delay in the range of 13 to 24 months, 59 projects have delay in the range of 25 to 60 months and 24 projects have delay of 61 months and above.

During April, there are 117 projects which are showing time overruns of more than 6 months and 99 projects which are having cost overruns of more than Rs 100 crore and 40 projects are having both time overruns of more than 6 months and cost overruns of more than Rs 100 crore.

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