Delay in central projects in infrastructure sectors like roads, highways, ports, petroleum, railways and power is estimated to cost the public exchequer over Rs 20,948.69 crore.
Various projects of 15 different ministries are running late by at least two months to 13 years.
Some of the significant projects, which are running behind schedule and have incurred a cost overrun, include work in parts of the high profile Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) on National Highways-2 and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Phase-II on state highway-54.
According to figures released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, the vital petroleum sector has as many as 25 projects out of total 37, overdue, and has borne the maximum cost overrun of Rs 10,183.13 crore. The original approved cost for the projects was Rs 36,182.93 crore which was revised to Rs 46,366.06 crore.
Out of a total of 890 projects, each costing Rs 20 crore or more, 267 projects under 15 ministries are running behind schedule by as much as 159 months.
The total estimated cost of all the 890 projects was over Rs 1,38, 860.56 crore which has inflated to about Rs 1,60,391.97 crore.
The total expenditure till December 2006 has been about Rs 1,38,905 crore, that is, about 37% of the anticipated cost. Delays up to over 16 years have been reported in some extreme cases.
The projects being tracked include 63 mega-projects, each costing Rs 1,000 crore or more; 426 major projects, each costing between Rs 100 crore and Rs 1,000 crore and 377 medium projects, each costing between Rs 20 crore and Rs 100 crore)
Even the much in focus civil aviation ministry has 12 projects of the 25 projects, running late by at least over two years.
Some of the ministries reporting large number of delayed projects are road transport (86 out of a total of 205), railways (33 of 276), telecommunication (32 of 55), power (19 of 76), petroleum (14 of 36) and shipping (15 of 36).