Big project delays cost govt loss of `1 lakh cr
At a time when a considerable hue and cry is being raised over a notional loss of `1,76,000 crores in the alleged 2G telecom scam, government data suggests that the nation has already lost a substantive amount of around `1,00,000 crores due to a delay in implementing Central development projects in different states.
Revealing this, an official note of the ministry of programme implementation, a copy of which is available with this newspaper, states: “Out of the total 606 projects, 85 have both time as well as cost overruns. The cost overrun in these projects is of the order of `87,129.32 crores, and the range of delay in these projects varies from three to 225 months.”
What is interesting to note here is that the total cost overrun is almost half the notional loss in the 2G scam. But experts feel that in this case, the loss is more substantive. The 606 projects are spread across the length and breadth of the country. Among the 85 delayed projects, a few (eight) of them are being implemented in areas which cover more than one state.
Putting forward the reasons for the delay in implementing projects, the ministry note blames contractors.
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Ease hi-tech curbs, PM tells Germany
Berlin, Dec. 12: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants Germany to relax stringent export control laws to open “new horizons” in high technology trade with India. The two vowed to increase trade by 40 per cent to 20 billion euros by 2012.
“There is vast untapped potential for high technology trade... I conveyed to Chancellor (Angela) Merkel that relaxation of German export control laws will open new horizons. This will be to our mutual benefit,” Dr Singh told reporters. She said there was no “trust deficit” between India and Germany on this. —PTI
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