NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Union Railways Minister Ram Vilas Paswan finds himself on the wrong track with the Planning Commission taking a serious view of the ``thoughtless sanctioning of projects'' by him.

As many as 123 projects, costing the exchequer nearly Rs 25,000 crore, are already underway. Sixty-seven of these have already overshot the approved cost by 35 per cent. And yet, seemingly oblivious to this all, Paswan is still sanctioning projects ``left, right and centre,'' much to the dismay of Planning Commission.pIrked by Paswan's propensity of approving projects, the Planning Commission had recommended to the Finance Ministry that the Railways should not be granted the additional Rs 1,500 crore demanded by him, sources disclosed.

``The projects already underway have to be completed first. There is no point of sanctioning new populist projects till the old ones are completed. That is the reason why so many projects end up in the deep freeze with little chance of ever seeing the light of the day. As many as 19 projects worth Rs 1,300 crore have already been frozen or dropped midway after crores of rupees had been spent on them. In such a scenario, how can we keep pandering to unreasonable demands of the railway minister,'' questioned a senior official of the Planning Commission.

Among the projects approved by Paswan, most of them cater to his home state Bihar and other backward areas forming the Janata Dal vote bank. ``As soon as he took over as the Railway minister Paswan gave approval to a 71.45 km railway line between his constituency Hajipur and Bachwara in Bihar. The next approval was for a railway line between Mansi and Saharsa, again in Bihar,'' sources said.

This was not all. Approval of a Rs 100 crore, 76 km railway line between Sakri and Hassanpur followed soon. Even among the pending projects, emphasis was laid on completion of projects in Bihar and other backward states. A new line project between Bagaha and Chittauni, originally sanctioned in April 1994 at an estimated cost of Rs 6.74 crore was subsequently suspended because of fund constraints.

Apparently Paswan thought differently and restarted the project, now estimated to cost Rs 185 crore. Along with his own ministry, he also roped in governments of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to fund the project. ``When it is a matter of his own state, everything else takes a back-seat,'' said the Planning Commission official.

In fact, the Department of Programme Implementation (DPI), which is supposed to monitor the various projects, also told the Railway Board to be more scrupulous in sanctioning projects. ``The Public Investment Board (PIB) had asked us to conduct inquiries into a few projects which had severely overrun their estimated cost but nothing came out of them. It is extremely difficult to pinpoint responsibility,'' a senior officer at the Department of Programme Implementation said.

With Paswan sanctioning projects seemingly without much thought, the Cabinet Secretariat too intervened. It asked the Railway Board to launch projects only after consulting the Department of Programme Implementation, the Finance Ministry and the Cabinet. This angered the Railway Minister who decided to personally throw his weight behind projects.

The result is Gonda-Gorakhpur gauge conversion project costing Rs 250 crore, a Gonda-Bahraich gauge conversion project costing Rs 48 crore and several others. It matters little to Paswan if these projects do not have the approval of either the Planning Commission or of the Cabinet.``What more can we do? The bureaucracy only proposes. It is the minister who disposes,'' quipped the officer.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.