New Delhi: More than three-fifths of the total 349 delayed central projects belong to the railway's sector causing a cost overrun of Rs 1.73 lakh crore, according to a report by the statistics ministry. A total of 213 projects of railways are facing delays due to various reasons, leading to cost overrun of Rs 1.73 lakh crore, the report of the Statistics and Programme Implementation ministry for October 2017 mentioned. 

The statistics ministry monitors central sector projects envisaging an expenditure of Rs 150 crore and above each on regular basis. According to the report, the original cost of these 213 railway projects was Rs 123,103.45 crore. The total anticipated cost of the projects has ballooned to Rs 2,96,496.70 crore now due to delays, which shows overall cost escalation of 140.85 percent. 

The ministry monitored 350 projects of Indian Railways in October this year. The report stated that as many as 36 projects of railways out of the monitored 350 projects reported time overrun or delay of 12 months to 261 months. After railways, power sector reported the second highest incidence of overall cost overrun. 

Of the 126 power projects monitored by the statistics ministry, 43 reported cost overrun of Rs 58,728.23 crore. The total original cost of these 43 projects was Rs 104,449.62 crore which escalated to the total anticipated cost of Rs 163,178.45 crore. The report stated that out of the 126 power sector projects, 64 reported time overrun (delay) of 2 months to 136 months. PTI