A construction project is said to be fruitful only when the project gets executed within estimated time, budget and attains the desired strength. Thereby time delay is a frequent phenomenon and is almost associated with nearly all construction projects. The major aim of the study is to find out the most possible delay factors which affect the completion of a construction project within scheduled time. The study also includes a questionnaire survey from various respondents which includes about 41 delay factors and the respondents includes contractors and consultants in the Southern region of India. The result obtained by the questionnaire from the respondent are analyzed for identifying the delay causes using Relative Importance Index (RII). Findings reveals that that the main cause for delays are shortage of labor, difficulties in financing project by contractor, late procurement of materials and unclear and inadequate details in drawings ranked highest among the major factors causing delay in construction projects in Southern Regions of India. The study concludes that there still exist a number of causes of delays and their effects put construction projects at great risk that have an effect on their performance. It is therefore recommended that change orders by owner during construction and late in revising and approving design documents by owner will also affects the project completion on time. Not all the delays can be rectified, but few of them can be neglected by improving management responsibilities. The recommendations and limitations are also discussed in the conclusion part of study.
Causes of delay, construction industry, delay factors, relative importance index
