Failure to install a computer system to track down defaulters in fine payments has cost the UK exchequer 400 million pounds. A government report has admitted that the system, which was supposed to be in place to create a national database for court fine dues, may not be in place before 2008. Which means that till December 2007, the offenders who do not pay their court fines would not be tracked, as there is no system to transfer names from one area to another. The project, initially to have been operational in 1998 at a cost of 156 million pounds, would now cost nearly 490 million pounds. And according to an estimate, the court fine defaulters already owe the government over 400 million pounds. Project overruns and cost escalations are not the privilege of Indians it seems!
