Question : Expediting Pending Projects

(a) the State/project-wise details of under construction/pending railway projects in various States of the country including Chhattisgarh, UP, Bihar, Telangana and West Bengal at present;

(b) the status of these projects as on date;

(c) the details of the projects running behind schedule along with the reasons therefor and the details of the cost-escalation in respect of these projects, project-wise during each of the last three years;

(d) the details of the funds allocated/spent so far in these projects, project-wise during the last three years; and

(e) the steps being taken for timely completion of these projects?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI MANOJ SINHA)

(a) to (e): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 555 BY SHRI E.T. MOHAMMED BASHEER, SHRIMATI NEELAM SONKER, SHRI VISHNU DAYAL RAM, SHRI A.P. JITHENDER REDDY, DR. BANSHILAL MAHATO, SHRI ABHIJIT MUKHERJEE AND SHRI RADHESHYAM BISWAS TO BE ANSWERED IN LOK SABHA ON 02.12.2015 REGARDING EXPEDITING PENDING PROJECTS

(a) to (d): Since railway projects generally straddle over more than one State, details of ongoing projects is not maintained State-wise. However, Zone-wise/project-wise details including their cost, upto date expenditure & amount allocated in last three years of all the ongoing projects that inter-alia include the State of Chhattisgarh, UP, Bihar, Telangana, West Bengal are available on Indian Railways’ website (i.e. www.indianrailways.gov.in) and have also been tabled before the House during presentation of Railway Budgets 2013-14, 2014-15 & 2015-16.

Completion of projects depends on many factors such as land acquisition, forestry & wild life clearances, shifting of services, construction of road over and road under bridges by road maintaining agencies etc., apart from availability of funds. As many of these factors are not within the control of Railways, it is not feasible to fix timelines for all the projects. As a result, most of the ongoing projects are facing cost overrun.

(e): Various measures taken to expedite completion of projects include substantial increase in allocation of funds, prioritisation of projects, delegation of powers at field level, inviting the State Governments to participate with Railways for resource mobilisation for projects, nomination of nodal officers for improved co-ordination with the State Governments etc.
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