Kashmir rail project cost overrun at Rs. 17000 crore.

The Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway project has been delayed by over 16 years which would result in cost overrun of Rs. 17,065 crore, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

The project is now expected to be completed by December 2018, in place of November 2002 as the initial commissioning target for the entire rail line, revealed a written reply on delayed projects to Lok Sabha by Statistics Minister VK Singh.

According to the statement, the cost of the project was estimated at Rs. 2,500 crore when it was approved in March 1995. Now the cost has escalated to Rs. 19,565 crore with expected commissioning in December 2018.

An expenditure of Rs. 10,205.04 crore has been incurred on the project so far. Similarly, many projects costing more than Rs 150 crore each, are delayed due to various reasons including law and order problems, delay in land acquisition and environment and forest clearances, fund constraints and contractual issues, as per the minister's reply.

Statistics Ministry is monitoring 738 central sector projects costing Rs 150 crore or more. As on January 1, 2015, 315 such projects in sectors including rail, road, power and civil aviation were showing time and cost overrun.

The House was also informed that as on date, in the central Project Monitoring Group (PMG) set up in Cabinet Secretariat, out of 494 projects (worth Rs. 24.67 lakh crore) considered so far and all issues in 208 projects (Rs 7.46 lakh crore) have been resolved by various agencies.

As many as 57 projects (in PMG worth Rs. 4.14 lakh crore) have been closed as no action was required by the PMG. At present 232 projects (worth Rs. 13.51 lakh crore) with 611 issues are under consideration of the PMG including 3 resolved projects which have new issues, as per the minister's reply.

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