As many as 417 infrastructure projects, every entailing an funding of ₹150 crore or more, have been hit by cost overruns of more than ₹4.77 lakh crore in September this yr, mentions the newest report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for September 2023.
The Statistics Ministry, which screens infrastructure projects worth ₹150 crore or more, stated out of 1,763 projects, about one-fourth (417) reported cost overruns and half (842) of them have been delayed.
“Total original cost of implementation of the 1,763 projects was ₹24,86,402.70 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be ₹29,64,345.13 crore,” which mirrored cost overruns of just about 20% of authentic cost, the report talked about.
According to the report, the expenditure incurred on these projects until September 2023 was ₹15,44,600.67 crore, which is 52.11% of the anticipated cost of the projects.
However, it said that the variety of delayed projects decreased to 617, if delay is calculated on the premise of the newest schedule of completion. Further, it said that for 298 projects neither the yr of commissioning nor the tentative gestation interval has been reported.
Out of the 842 delayed projects, 194 have total delays in the vary of 1-12 months, 190 have been delayed between one-two years, whereas 323 projects have been delayed between two and 5 years, and one other 123 projects have been delayed by more than 5 years. The common time overrun in these projects is more than three years.
Reasons for time overruns as reported by challenge implementing companies embrace delays in land acquisition, acquiring forest and setting clearances, and lack of infrastructure assist and linkages. Delays in tie-ups for challenge financing, finalisation of detailed engineering, change in scope, tendering, ordering and tools provide, and legislation and order issues had been among the many different causes.
The report additionally cited state-wise lockdowns throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 for the delays.
It has additionally been noticed that challenge executing companies should not reporting revised cost estimates and commissioning schedules for a lot of projects, which suggests time/cost overrun figures are under-reported, the report added.
