As many as 369 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 150 crore or above, have shown cost overruns to the tune of over Rs 3.58 lakh crore owing to delays and other reasons, a report said.
The total cost of implementation of the 1,420 projects worth Rs 150 crore and above was Rs 18.05 lakh crore and their anticipated cost is like to be Rs 21.63 lakh crore, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation's latest report for September 2018 said. This reflects a 19.83 percent cost overrun, it added.
According to the report, the expenditure incurred on these projects till September 2018 is Rs 7.83 lakh crore, which is 36.21 percent of the anticipated cost of the projects. However, it said the number of delayed projects decreases to 300 if delay is calculated on the basis of latest schedule of completion.
For 651 projects, neither the year of commissioning nor the tentative gestation period has been reported. Out of 366 delayed projects, 100 have overall delay in the range of 1 to 12 months, 69 have 13 to 24 months, 91 projects reflect delay of 25 to 60 months and 106 projects show 61 months and above delay. It also said the average time overrun in these 366 delayed projects is 45.95 months.
The brief reasons for time overruns as reported by various project implementing agencies are delays in land acquisition, forest clearance and supply of equipment. Besides, there are other reasons like fund constraints, geological surprises, geo-mining conditions, slow progress in civil works, shortage of labour, inadequate mobilisation by the contractor, Maoist problems, court cases, contractual issues, and law and order issues, among others.
It also observed that project agencies are not reporting revised cost estimates and commissioning schedules for many projects, which suggests that time and cost overrun figures are under-reported.
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