Causes and effects of delay in completion of government funded building construction projects in Sri Lanka : with special reference to the projects based in Western Province

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to identify the causes of delay in completion of government funded building construction projects in Sri Lanka; with special reference to the projects based in the Western province as well as to highlight its impact on the construction industry and to round up by forwarding recommendations for minimization of such delays. A questionnaire survey was carried out among the engineers representing consultants and contractors engaged in building construction projects of government funded projects in western province of Sri Lanka to identify the delays and their effects. The delay in completion of government funded building construction projects could be due to various reasons and those reasons will change from region to region. For this research, a questionnaire was used with 25 delay causes and the responses were ranked according to relative importance index. At the completion of the research nineteen causes were identified which have more effect on the delay. Those 25 delay causes were grouped in to four called client related delays, consultant related delays, contractor related delays and other delays and were used in finding which party had higher impact on project delay. The ten effects were listed in the questionnaire that can occur as a result of delay in building construction projects and ranked them according to their importance level. Having identified the causes having a high effect for the delays, the areas that are to be improved/concentrated can be identified and that will help overcome the problem for delays. According to the analyzed data, shortage of skill labor is the cause with the most impact and delay in providing necessary drawings and delay in delivery of required material to the site has become the second and third position respectively. Also it was found that delays occurring from the contractor’s side have higher impact on project delay. Increasing in the final cost of the project is the main effect which results from the delay in completion of government funded building construction projects.