The Finance Ministry is planning to fast track its stalled projects worth over Rs18 lakh crore pending with the various ministries and other departments in which mega projects like Gujarat’s Gift City and coal mining projects in Chhattisgarg and other States are on its top priority list. The Finance Ministry will also meet bankers and financial institutions shortly to find ways out to resolve such pending issues.
“We are planning to expedite the pending 299 stall projects worth over Rs18 lakh crore as soon as possible. We are also mulling measures to remove such bottlenecks that hamper the implementation of many infrastructure projects for which we will meet bankers and finance institutions shortly,” a top official in the Finance Ministry told The Pioneer.
The Government constituted the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) in January 2013 to fast track projects in infrastructure and manufacturing sectors all over the country. Project Monitoring Group (PMG) in Cabinet Secretariat has been constituted to monitor stalled projects for resolution of various issues involved therein.
According to the Finance Ministry, there arte a total of 299 projects involving an investment of Rs18.13 lakh crore still pending with PMG. “There are over 25 mega projects worth more than Rs10,000 crore each are also in various stage of completion or stalled in different states. Out of these projects, we will prioritising all mega projects on coal mining in Chhattisgarh and other states and Gift City project of Gujarat. The Gift City project alone has an investment outlay of Rs78,000 crore,” said the official.
However, a banking source said one of the major reasons for the stalled projects is nothing but rising bad loans or non-performing assets (NPAs) for public sector banks.
“There are many factors involved in the non-implementation of infrastructure projects, mainly fuel linkage, environment clearance, land acquisition issue etc. The level of NPAs and the stressed projects of the public sector banks have been showing an upward trend in the past four quarters,” it added. As per the Reserve Bank of India data, gross NPAs of the PSU banks have gone up to Rs2.6 lakh crore as on December 2014.
The PMG has piloted 47 projects, which were considered by CCI on August 26, 2013, September 17, 2013 and December 9, 2013. Now, these 47 projects have been monitored by different ministries and departments, as per the Finance Ministry data.As on February 25, 2015, 504 projects having investment of Rs25.38 lakh crore have been reported with PMG for resolution of issues pending with various ministries and departments. Out of these 504 mega projects, all regulatory and supervisory issues in respect of 205 projects having an outlay of Rs7.25 lakh crore.
“The CCI issued appropriate directions in respect of 19 of these projects, took note of 27 projects and decided on ‘no action’ in one project,” the Finance Ministry said, adding that out of 47 projects, all regulatory and supervisory issues in respect of 21 projects involving an investment of Rs80,662 crore have been fully resolved.