Delays in the completion of public infrastructure projects in India are taken for granted. This is not new. What is new is the staggering scale of the damage that these delays have begun to cause in a world that is moving so fast. The prices of input commodities such as cement, for example, are rising rapidly in line with the frenetic construction activity taking place in fast-growing parts of the world. This makes time overruns that much more costly. Just a couple of months? delay could throw all budgets into disarray. Beyond that, delayed projects also come with a huge opportunity cost. A port or highway that fails to materialise on schedule hurts the planning of all those hoping to use the facility, with a domino effect on efficiency all through the chain. It follows that unreliable project completion schedules also deter investment, since they act as risk multipliers. On the whole, it is obvious that delays hamper economic growth. It?s bad enough that poor infrastructure makes an economy vulnerable to overheating.
Sadly, things are hardly improving. According to a recent report by the ministry of statistics & programme implementation, of a total of 605 public projects planned, around 248 are way behind schedule. Another 149 projects, though approved, have not even been commissioned, and 46 other projects are waiting for the updating of their completion schedule. Merely 22 projects are ahead of schedule, while 14 are on schedule. A staggering Rs 105,000 crore has already been spent on these projects, and the overruns imply that the projects will end up taking an average 21.5% more than the original plan. The worst performers are sectors such as nuclear energy, hydropower generation, railways and public healthcare. The delays point to governance failure. The mechanisms to hold anyone accountable for completion are faulty. Pelf and patronage add to the problem. Compare this with the private sector, which places a premium on ahead-of-schedule programme implementation, Reliance?s Jamnagar refinery being a prime example. Or even the Delhi Metro project, which set such high standards for speed in its first phase that its outlying extensions to suburbs like Gurgaon now seem excruciatingly slow. Public-private partnerships were supposed to be an answer to many of these delays. But a good model is still awaited.
