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

The central government report showed that the Muneerabad-Mahaboobnagar rail project is the most delayed project. It is delayed by 276 months

The road transport and highways sector has the maximum number of delayed projects at 460, followed by railways at 117 and the petroleum industry at 90, showed a government report.

In the road transport and highways sector, 460 out of 749 projects are delayed.

In railways, out of 173 projects, 117 are delayed, while in the petroleum sector, 90 out of 152 projects are running behind schedule, as per the latest flash report on infrastructure projects for January 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.

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The IPMD comes under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The report showed that the Muneerabad-Mahaboobnagar rail project is the most delayed project. 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 January 2023 contains information on the status of the 1,454 central sector infrastructure projects costing Rs 150 crore and above. As many as 871 projects are delayed with respect to their original schedules and 272 projects have reported additional delays vis-à-vis their date of completion reported in the previous month. Of these 272 projects, 59 are mega projects costing 1,000 crore and above.

About the road transport and highways sector, the report stated that the total original cost of implementation of 749 projects when sanctioned was of the order of Rs 4,09,053.84 crore, but this was subsequently anticipated at Rs 4,27,518.41 crore, implying a cost overrun of 4.5 per cent.

The expenditure incurred on these projects till January 2023 was Rs 2,34,935.32 crore, which was 55 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

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Similarly, in railways, the 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 rise to Rs 6,26,632.52 crore, implying a cost overrun of 68.1 per cent.

The expenditure incurred on these projects till January 2023 was Rs 3,72,172.64 crore, which was 59.4 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

About the petroleum sector, it said the total original cost of implementation of 152 projects when sanctioned was of the order of Rs 3,78,090.07 crore, but this was subsequently anticipated to increase to Rs 3,96,608.48 crore, implying a cost overrun of 4.9 per cent.

The expenditure incurred on these projects till January 2023 was Rs 1,49,364.38 crore, which was 37.7 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.