Indian Railways cost overruns at massive Rs 2.46 lakh cr; blame it all on this

Indian Railway projects account for over 60 per cent of the 358 central sector projects that are facing cost overrun for various reasons, with their cost escalating by Rs 2.46 lakh crore.

A total 216 projects of railways are facing total cost overrun of Rs 2.46 lakh crore, as per the flash report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for July 2018.

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

According to the report, the total original cost of these 216 projects was Rs 1,65,343.22 crore. The total anticipated cost of these projects is estimated at Rs 4,12,160.04 crore, which indicates overall cost escalation by 149.28 per cent.

The ministry monitored 350 projects of Indian Railways in July this year. The study stated that as many as 65 projects of railways out of the monitored 350 projects reported time overrun or delay of 3 months to 374 months.

After railways, power sector reported the second highest incidence of overall cost overrun. Out of the 110 projects monitored by the ministry in the power sector, 45 reported cost overrun of Rs 63,973.82 crore.

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The total original cost of these 45 projects was Rs 1,78,005.08 crore which escalated to total anticipated cost of Rs 2,41,978.90 crore. The report stated that out of the 110 power sector projects, 36 reported time overrun (delay) of 1 month to 135 months.