The 460th Flash Report on Central sector projects for February 2024 indicates that 443 infra projects are hit by a cost overrun of Rs 4.92 lakh crore as of February 2024. The Flash Report released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation contains information on the status of the 1,902 Central Sector Infrastructure Projects costing 150 crore and above.
During February 2024, of the 1,902 projects, 103 projects (88 projects in Road, 7 projects in Power, 5 projects in Civil and 3 projects in Steel Sectors) were added and 20 projects (16 in Road, 3 in Petroleum and one in Health Sector) were completed. A total of 764 projects are delayed with respect to their original schedules and 147 projects have reported additional delays vis-à-vis their date of completion reported in January 2024. Of these 147 projects, 43 are Mega projects with a cost of Rs 1,000 crore or more.
The total original cost of implementation of the 1,902 projects was Rs 27,08,030.44 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be Rs 32,00,507.55 crore, which indicates an overall cost overrun of Rs 4,92,477.11crore (18.19 percent of original cost). The expenditure incurred on these projects till February 2024 is Rs 16,76,739 crore, which is 52.39 percent of the anticipated cost of the projects.
Out of the 1,902 projects, 54 projects are ahead of schedule, 695 are on schedule, 764 are delayed, 443 projects reported cost overrun and 245 projects reported both time and cost overrun with respect to their original project implementation schedules. However, the number of delayed projects decreases to 568 if the delay is calculated based on the latest schedule of completion. Further, for 389 projects neither the year of commissioning nor the tentative gestation period has been reported.
Further, of the 764 delayed projects, 188 projects have an overall delay in the range of 1 to 12 months, 185 projects have delays in the range of 13 to 24 months, 273 projects have delays in the range of 25 to 60 months and 116 projects have delays of more than 60 months. The average time overrun in these 764 delayed projects is 36.27 months.
The ministry has reported that project agencies are not reporting revised cost estimates and commissioning schedules for many projects, indicating under reporting of time/cost overrun figures.
