Identification of Risks for Indian Highway Construction

Highway projects carry out higher risk than other construction projects because they entail high capital outlays and intricate site conditions. Although the research currently available provides many valuable insights into the issue, however identification of risks pertaining to Indian highways construction was neglected. This paper presents the findings of questionnaire survey conducted on the critical risk factors affecting the successful performance of highway construction in India in terms of cost, time and quality. The critical risk factors in Indian highway constructions are change of scope of work, land acquisition delay, poor preliminary soil information and investigations, schedule delay caused by rejection of unqualified materials and change orders by political pressure. Further, critical risk factors were explored through factor analysis and categorized them in five factors viz. construction risk, public sector management risk, engineering risk, resource procurement risk and social risk. The identified risks will be useful to the field engineers for design of proper risk mitigation strategy during planning stage.