Road transport and highways sector has maximum number of delayed projects: Govt report

New Delhi, April 30

The road transport and highways sector has the maximum number of delayed projects at 402, followed by railways at 115 and the petroleum industry at 86, showed a government report.

In the road transport and highways sector, 402 out of 749 projects are delayed. For Railways, out of 173 projects, 115 are delayed, while in the petroleum sector, 86 out of 145 projects are running behind schedule, as per the latest flash report on infrastructure projects for March 2023.

The Infrastructure and Project Monitoring Division (IPMD) is mandated to monitor central sector infrastructure projects costing Rs 150 crore and above based on the information provided on the Online Computerised Monitoring System (OCMS) by the project implementing agencies.

The IPMD comes under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The report showed that the Muneerabad-Mahaboobnagar rail project is the most delayed. It is delayed by 276 months.

The second-most delayed project is the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail project, which is delayed by 247 months.

The third-most delayed project, Belapur-Seawood-Urban Electrified Double Line, is running 228 months behind schedule.

The Flash Report for March 2023 contains information on the status of the 1,449 central sector infrastructure projects costing 150 crore and above.

As many as 821 projects are delayed, 354 reported cost overrun and 247 projects reported both time and cost overrun with respect to their original project implementation schedules.

A total of 821 projects are delayed with respect to their original schedules and 165 projects have reported additional delays vis-a-vis their date of completion reported in the previous month. Of these 165 projects, 52 are mega projects costing Rs 1,000 crore and above.

About the road transport and highways sector, report stated that the total original cost of implementation of 749 projects, when sanctioned, was of the order of Rs 4,32,893.85 crore, but this was subsequently anticipated to cost Rs 45,11,68.46 crore, implying a cost overrun of 4.2 per cent.

The expenditure incurred on these projects till March, 2023 was Rs 2,31,620.94 crore, which was 51.3 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

Similarly in railways, total original cost of implementation of 173 projects, when sanctioned, was of the order of Rs 3,72,761.45 crore, but this was subsequently anticipated to Rs 6,27,160.59 crore, implying a cost overrun of 68.2 per cent.

The expenditure incurred on these projects till March, 2023 was Rs 3,84,947.64 crore, which was 61.4 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

About the petroleum sector, it said, total original cost of implementation of 145 projects, when sanctioned, was of the order of Rs 3,63,608.84 crore, but this was subsequently anticipated to Rs 3,84,082.25 crore, implying a cost overrun of 5.6 per cent.

The expenditure incurred on these projects till March, 2023 stood at Rs 1,52,566.01 crore, which was 39.7 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.