Under the command of Dr Manmohan Singh, India has lost an astounding Rs 1, 16,724 crore because of cost-overruns in 203 infrastructure projects.
These official figures were revealed by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, which monitors the 600 infrastructure projects that cost over Rs 150 crore each.
From in.news.yahoo.com:
Rs 1,16,724 crore is indeed a big hole in the country’s finances. It’s well over twice the current Bihar budget of Rs 53,927 crore. This money could also be used to build more than 11,000 Kendriya Vidyalayas at Rs 10.5 crore per building. It’s also almost as huge as the estimated Rs 1,50,000 crore 2G scam that’s rocking Parliament these days.
Is Dr Singh awake to these facts?
Cost overruns are half the story; they go hand in hand with delayed execution. More than half of these projects-306-have gone well beyond their completion schedule, the range of delay spanning a continuum of despair from one to 225 months. Not surprisingly, most of the projects in the rail ministry fall in the “slow progress” bracket. The ministry cites land acquisition and fund constraints as a major cause of the delays.
Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha is appalled. “It is a scandalous situation. Every government has the responsibility to streamline cost-overruns and time delays. BJP showed its concern and created a monitoring unit by setting up the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation with a driven minister like Arun Shourie in charge of it,” he says.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, industrialist and independent Rajya Sabha MP, said the present approach of UPA to the whole issue is tentative and amateurish & the PMO monitoring to accelerate infrastructure projects is a flawed model.
