With around 300-odd big ticket infrastructure projects and each worth around 150 crore spread across several ministries including Steel, Power and Telecom facing incessant delays, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has pulled up the concerned departments over slackness in their periodical reviews.
In a letter to all the concerned ministries routed through the office of the Cabinet Secretary, and details of which are available with The Pioneer, the PMO has taken serious note of the time and cost overruns in these projects. Pointing towards lack of proper planning and carelessness in periodical review of these projects by the concerned departments, the PMO has directed all ministries to conduct monthly review meetings, especially focusing on projects having more than six months time and over Rs 100 crore cost overruns.
According to figures available with this newspaper, the original cost of these 300-odd projects was around Rs9.2 lakh crore and due to the delay, the costs of these projects went up by 19 per cent over the original valuation.
Disciplinary action is likely to be taken against officials found to be responsible for delays in such projects, sources privy to the development, pointed out.
The ministries have also been asked to work out the corrective action which should be taken to rectify the delay in projects. Also in the review meetings, responsibilities should be fixed and disciplinary action be taken against personnel responsible for such delays in the projects.
Ever since the NDA Government took charge at the Centre, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been conducting regular review meetings of various infrastructure projects which are essential for improving the economic growth. The Government has been bullish on fast tracking such projects and sources pointed out that the fact that around 300 projects are found to be running behind schedule, raised the hackles of the PMO.
The Ministry for Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) runs an online computerised monitoring system for projects worth Rs150 crore and more. The ministries have been directed in the letter, which is addressed to Secretaries of all key departments, to ensure that all the important milestones related to these projects, including the physical and financial progress, are updated on this system every month.
This data can also be used by the ministries during their monthly review meetings of these delayed projects, sources informed. There are a total of 720 Central Sector Infrastructure Projects, with each costing Rs150 crore. MoSPI has the database of all these projects, and out of these, 295 projects are facing incessant delays in terms of time as well as cost.
While the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) under the aegis of the Central Government, clears projects which are worth more than Rs1,000 crore, medium scale projects like the aforementioned ones, too are significant for the overall growth of the economy and the laxity found in the monitoring of these 300-odd projects with each costing Rs150 crore and above, has led to the stern warning being issued to all the concerned ministries by the PMO.