Influence of delay in utility shifting for extension of time claims in road construction projects in Sri Lanka

Abstract

With the growing of the road construction sector, extension of time claims has been grown significantly due to the various reasons. Utility shifting is critical in road construction since it necessitates the relocation of existing service lines in the site premises without causing public disruption. However, there have been a number of delays in recent years, which will result in the emergence of extension of time claims as a result of these delays in the utility shifting procedure. As a result, utility transfer delays have become a major issue in road construction projects, resulting in time claims being extended. Therefore, the aim of the research is to improve the efficiency of the utility shifting process, which will help to reduce the impact of utility shifting delays on time claims in Sri Lankan Road Construction projects. Content analysis and Relative Important Index (RII) methods were used to analyse the empirical data acquired from preliminary and expert interviews with a questionnaire survey. The research's findings indicated 10 most severe causes of delay in utility shifting process. These causes have been derived based on the possibility of arising extension of time claims and significance of impact of causes of delay in utility shifting process. Lack of coordination by the Client/the Engineer and utility Authorities except the Contractor, insufficient budget allocation for the Client and procurement issues by the utility Authorities are the top three most severe causes of this study which rapidly leads extension of time claims for delays in utility shifting process in Sri Lankan Road construction projects. In this research, forty-one (41), handling strategies were provided to minimise the effect of the ten most severe causes in utility shifting to reduce the extension of time claims in road construction projects is Sri Lanka. Finally, it is recommended not to include unfair contractual terms as to utility shifting work, such as transferring complete responsibility to the contractor even if the delay is caused by other parties in utility shifting.