Centre's projects in Andhra Pradesh delayed by several years, face cost overrun of over Rs 54,000 crores: Data

56 projects of the Union Government underway in Andhra Pradesh that have a project cost of over Rs 150 crore are being monitored by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

New Delhi: Over 50 projects of the Central government that are being implemented in the state of Andhra Pradesh are facing severe cost and time overrun, with a delay of nearly two decades in one case while the total cost overrun amounts to more than Rs 54,000 crore, showed the latest official data.

According to the data shared by the government in the Rajya Sabha, there are 56 ongoing central projects in Andhra Pradesh that have a project cost of over Rs 150 crore and are being monitored by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

These projects are related railways, highways, petroleum refining sector and water irrigation projects, among other things. As per a flash report generated by the ministry’s Online Computerized Monitoring System (OCMS) of the Ministry in February this year, there are 56 central projects in Andhra Pradesh with the original cost of over Rs 1.01 lakh crore.

The data showed that the anticipated cost of these projects is now above over Rs 1.54 lakh crore, an increase of more than 52 percent. Out of these 56 projects having the original cost of over Rs 150 crores, more than 40 percent or total 24 projects have time overruns.

Kotlpalli-Naraspur Railway project delayed by 18 years-According to the data, the KOTLPALLI-NARASAPUR project of the South Central Railway, which was approved in December 2001 at the original cost of Rs 1045.2 crore with the completion scheduled in March 2009, has been delayed by 18 years and is expected to be completed in March 2027 with a cost of over Rs 2,500 crores.

The government said the project has been delayed by 216 months due to fund constraints and the construction work encompassed forest land.

Polavaram Irrigation Project-Similarly, the well known Polavaram Irrigation Project which was approved in 2009 and was scheduled to be completed in March 2020 has been delayed by four years and with a cost overrun of nearly 5.5 times. The project’s original cost was Rs 10,151 crores whereas the revised and anticipated cost has gone up to over Rs 55,548 crores.

Highway projects-The data shows that there are 8 highways and road projects in the state that are facing time overruns of up to four years.

Refining projects-There are 9 petroleum sector projects in the state that are being monitored by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation for time and cost overruns. While Indian Oil and HPCL have four projects each, one project is being executed by the ONGC.

The data showed that all nine projects being executed by public sector oil companies have significant time overruns as they are delayed by upto over 3 years. Most important among them are Visakh Refinery Modernisation which was scheduled to be completed in July 2020 at a cost of Rs 20,928 crores but has been delayed by over 3 years with a cost overrun of over Rs 5330 crores. Similarly, the KG-DWN-98-2 Cluster II Development Project has been delayed by three years.