202 RAILWAY PROJECTS SEE COST OVERRUN

New Delhi, Nov. 5: Railway projects account for over 60 per cent of the 331 central sector projects that are facing cost overrun of `1.5 lakh crore due to various reasons.

A total 202 projects of railways are facing total cost overrun of `1.5 lakh crore, as per the flash report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for July, 2017.

The statistics ministry monitors central sector projects envisaging an expenditure of `150 crore and above each on regular basis.

According to the report, the total original cost of these 202 projects was `1,05,424.13 crore. The total anticipated cost of these projects is estimated at `2,55,634.29 crore which indicates overall cost escalation by 142.48 per cent.

The ministry monitored 350 projects of Indian Railways in July this year. The study stated that as many as 33 projects of Railways out of the monitored 350 projects reported time overrun or delay of 12 months to 261 months.

After railways, power sector reported second highest incidence of overall cost overrun.

Out of the 125 projects monitored by Statistics Ministry in the power sector, 43 reported cost overrun of `52,933.93 crore. The total original cost of these 43 projects was `89,432.27 crore which escalated to total anticipated cost of `1,42,366.20 crore.