Cost Of 216 Railway Projects Escalated By Rs 2.46 Lakh Crore, Says Report

A flash report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for July 2018 has pointed out that railway projects account for 60 per cent of the 358 projects of the central sector that are marred by cost overruns due to various reasons, Economic Times has reported.

According to the report, a total of 216 projects of Indian railways are facing a total cost overrun of Rs 2.46 lakh crore.

Central sector projects that envisage an expenditure of Rs 150 crore or more are monitored by the statistics ministry on a regular basis.

As per the report, Rs 165,343.22 crore was the total original cost of these 216 projects of the Indian Railways. The revised total anticipated cost of these projects is estimated at Rs 412,160.04 crore, indicating an overall cost overrun of Rs 246,816.82 crore or a 149.28 per cent cost escalation.

The ministry had studied 350 projects of Indian Railways in July this year. It was stated in the study that as many as 65 projects out of the 350 of the railways reported time overrun or delay of three months to 374 months.

As per the ministry’s report, power sector was the second sector after railways to report the highest number of projects with overall cost escalation. The ministry monitored 110 projects of the power ministry, out of which 45 reported cost overrun of Rs 63,973.82 crore.

A sum of Rs 178,005.08 crore was the original cost of these 45 projects of the power sector. The total anticipated cost is estimated at Rs 241,978.90 crore, resulting in an overall cost run of Rs 63,973.82 crore.

Out of the 110 projects in the power sector, 36 projects reported time overrun or delay of one month to 135 months, stated the report.