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

NEW DELHI: Road transport and highways sector has the maximum number of delayed projects at 301 followed by railways segment at 127 and petroleum sector at 91, the government said on Monday.

“The top 3 sectors with the maximum delayed projects are road transport and highwaysout of 843 projects 301 projects are delayed, railways- out of 211 projects 127 projects are delayed and petroleum- out of 139 projects 91 projects are delayed,” Minister of State for Statistics Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

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 Online Computerised Monitoring System (OCMS) by the project implementing agencies.

IPMD comes under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

As on June 1, 2022, 1,568 central sector infrastructure projects with anticipated completion cost of Rs 26,54,818.05 crore were on the OCMS. Out of the 1,568 projects, 721 projects were delayed and the cost overrun stood at Rs 3,28,126.34 crore, the minister said.

Bangalore-Satyamangalam rail line project was the most delayed one and was delayed by 312 months, according to the written reply.

Muneerabad-Mahaboobnagar rail project was delayed by 276 months while Udhampur-SrinagarBaramulla rail project was delayed by 245 months.

As per the data provided by the minister, among the top 20 delayed projects, 12 were of the railways.

The main reasons for increase in time of the projects include law and order problems, delay in land acquisition, environment and forest clearances, and funding constraints, according to the written reply.

The top five entities involved in development of projects worth Rs 150 crore and above are Dilip Buildcon (33), G R Infraprojects (28), Ashoka Buildcon (21), PNC Infratech (19) and Gawar Construction (18).