The Hindu Business Line : 301 projects delayed, cost overrun put at Rs 48,961 cr

Mumbai, Dec 21 The Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, today said as many as 301 projects were hit by cost overruns due to the delay in their implementation.

He said these projects, costing Rs 20 crore and above each, were delayed between one and 96 months and the cumulative cost overrun was Rs 48,961 crore.

Speaking at the 70th anniversary of Larsen and Toubro here on Friday, he said the Hyderabad and Bangalore airport work, undertaken by L&T, being ahead of schedule, were exceptions.

Mr. Chidambaram said the answer to many of India’s problems lay with restoring the primacy of the manufacturing sector. It had taken the backseat in the eighties and nineties and today the services sector accounted for 55 per cent of the GDP and agriculture flat at about 17 per cent. The remaining space was taken up by manufacturing and it had remained almost constant for over a few years. “Whether this space grows or declines lay the answer to many of India’s problems,” he said

The Minister said the working age population would surpass the dependent age population in the next 20 years. It could turn out to be a nightmare if there were not enough jobs for this emerging 19-24 year population, which would have 8-10 year school education alone.

Providing employment to this populace, with only a fraction of them exposed to vocational education, would rest with the manufacturing sector and industry as the services sector required much higher qualification and the agriculture sector would not be able to accommodate them.

India must become a manufacturing hub sooner or later, he said while stating that it was unfortunate that China was regarded a global manufacturer and India a service provider despite both possessing abundant human resources, trained labour, raw materials, engineering and design capabilities and financial services and products. And, it was imperative that India “dreamt big” as China in terms of size and scale of operations.

Lauding the growth of L&T since inception, he said the company dared to venture into new areas, unmindful of technical barriers, confident of its engineers overcoming them.

It had risen to become a Rs. 26,000-crore company with a market capitalisation of Rs 120,000 crore. “Who owns it we do not know: Institutions, individuals and a trust of the employees own it… If we carve out a sector called the national sector, L&T would be first company in it,” he said.

Mr. A.M. Naik, Chairman and Managing Director, said L&T’s footprint was in every part of India’s core sectors with the probable exception of automobile manufacturing.