The government has identified 20 infrastructure projects from the power and railways sector, costing Rs 500 crore and above, which have been languishing for years together due to constraints like inadequate funds, scarcity of steel, acquisition of land or law and order problems.

In order to put these projects back on track, a Committee of Secretaries (CoS) headed by cabinet secretary, K M Chandrasekhar reviewed the bottlenecks stalling the implementation of these 20 projects on November 1.

Sources said the ministry of statistics and programme implementation made a detailed presentation on these projects facing problems in implementation. Of these 20 projects, four projects are from the power sector and 16 from the railways sector.

Giving details, sources said that out of the 40 projects in the power sector costing Rs 500 crore and more, there are four hydro-electric projects are experiencing difficulties and reporting delays of 16 to 32 months. These include the 2,000 mw Subansiri lower hydroelectric project in Arunachal Pradesh, the 600 mw Tuirial hydroelectric project in Mizoram, the Kamang Hydroelectric project and the 100 mw Loktak hydel project in Manipur.

Sources said the COS has assured action by concerned government departments for a secured environment for smooth implementation of the projects.

The 600 mw Tuirial HEP is stuck on account of R&R issues. While the ministry of power has now proposed the possibility of availing benefits under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme for viability gas funding (VGF), the proposal was turned down by the finance ministry on the grounds that it does not qualify under the existing VGF scheme.

Sources said the COS discussed restructuring of the project portfolio to avoid further delays as NEEPCO has already spent close to Rs 300 crore on the project. The ministry of rural development was asked to intervene on the compensation issue and the co-operation of state government was sought on the law and order issues. A similar view on capital restructuring of the project portfolio emerged for the Kamenh HEP of NEEPCO.