Project delays cost govt Rs 1,24,000 crore

As India is set to shell out an additional Rs 1,24,000 crore due to delay in projects, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation wants state governments to get their act together and reduce delays.

Updated on: Apr 4, 2011, 02:28:28 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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As India is set to shell out an additional Rs 1,24,000 crore due to delay in projects, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation wants state governments to get their act together and reduce delays.

The money is almost one-third of India plan budget for financial year 2011-12 and could be enough to provide food grains to 30 crore poor across the country for two years. As per the ministry latest report, of the 567 projects costing more than R150 crore, 375 projects reported delays in the range of a month to 72 months. The sectors evaluated were coal, steel, petroleum, power, railways, road transport and highways and telecommunication.

"The total overrun of these projects worth R5,92,535 crore was about 20 crore because of the delays," the report, submitted to all government ministries this week, said. Only 135 projects are progressing towards completion on time. While 295 projects were behind schedule even in September 2010, the ministry’s report said 80 other projects reported additional delays, which was a cause of concern.

“We need a pro-active intervention by the state governments at the highest level,” programme implementation minister MS Gill said in a letter written to chief ministers of all states. He has suggested that a high powered committee under the Chief Secretary be constituted immediately with representation from state and central agencies to look into the delays. The major reasons for the delays identified were land acquisition, getting environment clearance, protest by local people, incomplete revenue records and lack of coordination between different agencies.

“The committee should meet once in four months to sort the pending issues,’ Gill said, while adding that in 50% cases of delay the state governments are responsible. The minister was of the view that if the delays continue, India would find it difficult to grow at 8-9 % of the GDP every year and infrastructure is a key driver for the economy.

“Anytime and cost overrun in implementation of these projects would be detrimental for progress of the country,” he said.

Even the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance had expressed concern over huge delay in the projects costing the exchequer dearly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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