New Delhi, Jan 26 (IANS): A total 1,351 under-implementation projects with total anticipated investment of approximately Rs 48.94 lakh crore, including infrastructure projects of ministries such as Road, Transport and Highways, Railways, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Power, and New and Renewable Energy are now closely tracked through the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) portal, an official statement said.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal reviewed the pace of implementation of infrastructure projects being monitored through the PMG portal and emphasised the need to address the issues being faced by implementing agencies on priority to ensure timely completion of projects.
The PMG portal of Invest India is a unique institutional mechanism to facilitate resolution of bottlenecks in infrastructure projects with investments upward of Rs 500 crore and do their milestone-based monitoring. The PMG mechanism allows project proponents to raise issues, causing hindrances in implementation of projects, with the government agencies concerned.
Issues raised on the PMG portal pertain primarily to land acquisition (about 40 per cent), grant of right of use/right of way (25 per cent), and forest, environment and wildlife clearances (14 per cent).
In 2021, PMG also incorporated milestone-based monitoring of projects, to allow for forecasting delays in projects to avoid time and cost overruns and identify agencies and authorities responsible.
Once enlisted on PMG, the projects and corresponding issues are taken up for resolution through meetings with state governments and Central Ministries and the portal provides for seamless flow of information as all stakeholders concerned have access to the portal and through regular updates and meetings, issues are addressed in a time- bound manner.
Since April, 2021, 687 projects with a value of Rs 17.9 lakh crore have been brought on PMG for monitoring and timely completion, bringing the total projects enlisted on PMG since inception to 1,726. Since April, 2021, 389 issues have been resolved and 22 meetings have been conducted with Central ministries and state governments by the DPIIT.