438 Infrastructure Projects Face Cost Overruns Worth Rs 4.34 Lakh Crores

A total of 438 projects in the infrastructure sector, worth more than Rs 150 crore have been affected by cost overruns totalling Rs 4.34 lakh crores.

According to a report on infrastructure projects monitoring, released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MOSPI) for the month of October 2021, out of the 1,680 such projects, 438 faced cost overruns while 539 were delayed.

The report pointed that the main reasons behind the delay in projects ranged from state-wise lockdowns due to Coronavirus pandemic, delay land acquisition and obtaining forest and environment clearances.

"Total original cost of implementation of the 1,680 projects was Rs 21,74,182.86 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be Rs 26,08,330.02 crore, which reflects overall cost overruns of Rs 4,34,147.16 crore (19.97 per cent of original cost)," the report said.

It further noted that the expenditure on these projects incurred till October 2021 was Rs 12,64,545.31 crore. This, the report said, was 48 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

Apart from delay in projects' completion, another interesting fact which the report brought out was that for 837 projects, neither the year of commissioning nor the tentative gestation period has been reported.

Out of the 539 delayed projects, 98 have overall delay in the range of 1-12 months, 109 have been delayed for 13-24 months, 211 for 25-60 months and 121 projects have delays of 61 months and above.

The average time overrun in these 539 delayed projects is 47.16 months.