The Ministry of Railways has set a new target for completing a total of 121 pending infrastructure projects by March 2024, including 50 projects each in the current and the next financial year, two officials familiar with the matter told News18.
This was discussed in a recent review conducted by the Niti Aayog and was attended by its CEO Amitabh Kant and senior officials from the Ministry of Railways and the Central Public Sector Enterprises under it. Railway projects with a budget of more than Rs 150 crore were discussed.
Most of the pending projects are on augmenting the rail infrastructure, including construction of new road over bridges and also big-ticket projects such as eastern and western freight corridors.
What data shows
As per official data available till February this year, 75 infrastructure projects will take beyond 2024 for completion. For instance, the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Project to be implemented by National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited will be completed after 2024. It is estimated that by March 2024, it will be 54 per cent completed.
The data states that the Ministry of Railways has a total of 285 projects, which require Rs 4,07,257 crore to be completed. As many as 32 projects were slated for completion last year.
As per sources in the government, Kant emphasised in the meeting that all central projects announced post-2014 should be completed by 2023-24. He is also learnt to have said that projects on which work has not yet started should be reviewed for cancellation.
He also sought an investigation into the reasons for the delay of the projects’ implementation and sought reforms to speed up the process.
A senior government official told News18 that in the meeting it was discussed that railways projects are counted in the weakest category of implementation as the average age of the projects is over 12 years.
Worst performers
“An analysis of implementing agencies was also discussed in the review meeting, which showed Northern Railways, Metropolitan Rapid Transport Projects (MRTP), Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFC), and Eastern Central Railways (ECR) are the worst-performing agencies,” the official said.
A second government official told News18 that it was decided to put a renewed focus on projects where more than 60 per cent disbursements have been done, which is 112 out of 285 projects and they should be aimed for completion by 2022-23.
“There are 16 priority projects for which PM Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone and they will be closely scrutinised for completion,” the official said.
As per officials in the Ministry of Railways, 53 pending projects are being implemented on a cost-sharing basis with state governments.
“In such projects, there are land acquisitions, and the state governments are also required to release funds,” the first official quoted above said, adding that the Ministry of Railways could not commit to completing such projects within the stipulated timeline.
However, the official added, the projects for which PM Modi has laid the foundation stone would likely be completed by March 2023 and 2024, and the ministry is undertaking monthly monitoring for them.
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