Kumar Neeraj Jha

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• Ph.D.
• Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

In the challenging landscape of real estate, project delays due to conflicts were a persistent issue until the Indian government introduced the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) in 2016. This transformative legislation aimed to bring transparency and accountability to the sector. Through a systematic approach involving a literatur...

Solar power is sustainable and one of the mainstream resources for meeting power demands. It has emerged as the most adaptable solution to energy access and security concerns. Despite offering modularity and low cost of generation advantages, the projects suffer overruns and often fail to deliver the desired performances. However, limited studies a...

Effective strategic management is essential for construction companies seeking to achieve sustained performance and establish robust long-term planning. The chapter explores the construction market dynamics, providing tailored insights and strategic tools that are essential for navigating the competitive industry landscape. It explores and adapts f...

This research aims to investigate the emerging digital technologies comprising artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain-enabled smart contracts, Internet of Things (IoT), and Distributed Common-Data Environments (DCDE) in confluence towards the concept development for the “Next-gen Computable Contracts” that are both intelligent and secure. While A...

Indian highway projects grapple with multifaceted delays, from contractual hurdles to legal complexities. Addressing this, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) embraces a cloud-based Data Lake, ushering in a “Fully Digital” paradigm. This advanced tool, validated through a literature review and NHAI stakeholder interviews, forecasts and m...

India’s National Solar Mission (NSM) is one of the most extensive renewable energy programs worldwide. The program underlays various short-term to long-term goals targeting the country’s growing needs and commitment to climate change control. However, the actual progress lags behind the growth estimations. Similar to other power resources, disputes...

Several construction projects globally suffer due to time and cost overruns. These could be due to reasons attributable to the contracting parties or unforeseen external circumstances. Disputes often arise between the parties regarding which side caused the delay and the compensation terms for the delay. Thus, this study is motivated to explore a d...

Effective decision-making is paramount for project success and industry advancement in the rapidly evolving landscape of the construction sector. To facilitate informed and timely decisions, integrating data, information, and knowledge has emerged as a critical imperative. This paper delves into the synergistic interplay between these three layers...

Certainty, commitment, and communication are essential requirements which seem to be eluding the existing contracting process giving rise to claims and disputes. Contract management practices continue to be manual and traditional despite the digital and technological developments in construction sector. Blockchain technology is increasingly used in...

Prescriptive approaches currently dominate decision-making in the case of general contractor-subcontractor contractual relationships. This leads to a general contractor-centric contractual practices and demonstrates a lack of exploration from the subcontractor's perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a reliable and validate...

Purpose With the surge in public procurement, especially in developing countries, ensuring fair competition in procurement has assumed paramount importance. Academic endeavors in the domain of competition issues have often lacked the views of field-level functionaries. This study aims to involve a large number of expert practitioners in India to id...

Road safety is a critical issue in India, with high rates of road traffic accidents resulting in fatalities and injuries. Despite several policies and programs being implemented by the government, the problem continues to persist due to various implementation challenges. Therefore, it is essential to develop a comprehensive framework that relies on...

Purpose Despite several initiatives taken by government of India since 2013 to improve the performance of major ports, growth was not as anticipated. Hence, there is a need to understand the performance of these major ports during 2013–2020 and to identify the critical challenges that affect their performance. Design/methodology/approach Performan...

Extended Abstract The Indian urban population is on an ever-growing rise. This increasing urban population amounts to a greater demand for urban infrastructure. Utilities are an important part of the urban fabric-both above and below the surface and bring a huge range of activities in maintenance, repair, and updation of utility lines with most wor...

With recent advances in information and communication technologies, trust and collaboration have become imperative in the construction industry. The increasing exchange of digital information and assets without much regard to contractual requirements has resulted in various data corruption, privacy, and security issues escalating to claims and disp...

Purpose-The poor quality of construction work in war-affected regions is a significant issue. The large-scale destruction to the existing infrastructure from the war necessitates cost and time-efficient delivery of construction projects during and postwar to bring normalcy to affected lives and places. Consequently, there is always a tendency to fi...

The rapid accumulation of highway infrastructure data and their widespread reuse in decision-making poses data quality issues. To address the data quality issue, it is necessary to comprehend data quality, followed by approaches for enhancing data quality and decision-making based on data quality information. This research aimed to identify the cri...

An efficient legal and contractual system requires an environment that supports trust and sophistication in data from multiple stakeholders. A blockchain-enabled, intelligent contracting system is a contract-management system in which the traditional contract-management process is combined with smart contracts and blockchain technology. Such a syst...

The public construction industry brings together diverse groups of subindustries with multiple stakeholders, all of whom should ideally endeavor to deliver a project without any disagreement. However, stakeholders attempting to protect their interests in accordance with a predetermined agreement and departmental code enter a potential zone of dispu...

This study focuses on the structural efficiency of 42 Indian regional airports over five years from 2014 to 2019. A two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) was applied to assess the structural efficiencies of airports. We find that distance to the closest airport, distance from the city centre, per capita income, accessibility and profitability o...

Purpose The Afghan construction industry faces resource shortages and heavily relies on foreign aid to fund public projects on the path to recovery and reconstruction. While the resource constraints demand cost-efficient delivery of construction projects, many Afghan public projects experience delays and cost overruns. This study aims to evaluate v...

The study aims to evaluate the risk of RTC on the selected intercity expressway in India. An exploratory data analysis technique was employed to ascertain crash characteristics. Random parameter negative binomial modelling approaches were used to account for segment-specific unobserved heterogeneity on the 168 km intercity six-lane expressway. Acco...

While in the last decade, digital tools and technologies have made their way into the construction industry, digital growth is still slow and incremental. The challenge is the consequential need for a collaborative and trustworthy environment with cooperation and concurrence among stakeholders. Blockchain technology holds promise and potential in p...

This article is for Hindi speaking readers for better reach and understanding of the research work.

Construction project delays are costly to stakeholders. Therefore, extensive research has been carried out in various countries covering different types of construction projects to identify delay factors and mitigation strategies. However, the literature has not documented the impact of a once-in-a-century event such as the COVID-19 pandemic on con...

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste generated from construction projects impacts the environment if not managed properly; appropriate C&D waste management is therefore necessary. The first step in this practice is the estimation of the quantity of C&D waste generated. The literature recommends numerous approaches for the quantification of C&D w...

Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) management is one of the reasons for the success of any construction project. Over time, the construction sector has consistently witnessed its projects getting complicated to manage. Along with this, the pressure comes from the growing demand to build intelligent and sustainable buildings. Therefore, there...

Trend forecasting shows that Indian container terminals will handle 25 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2025. However, improving operational performance is the best strategy to achieve this target. Many factors have adversely affected the Indian container terminal's operational performance despite the fact that the Indian government h...

Government agencies undertake procurement of works to achieve multiple goals. Like most countries, India has seen a rising volume of public construction projects. Nonetheless, this is an area that is yet to be tamed by the widespread procurement reforms, rendering it prone to corruption. This study introduces integrity risk management to constructi...

In the upcoming years, container terminals in India can attain more substantial throughput targets by exploiting their untapped potential of throughput. Numerous factors may affect the existing terminals’ ability to perform to their maximum capability. Despite the significance of the untapped potential, very few studies are available on the identif...

In the upcoming years, container terminals in India can attain more substantial throughput targets by exploiting their untapped potential of throughput. Numerous factors may affect the existing terminals’ ability to perform to their maximum capability. Despite the significance of the untapped potential, very few studies are available on the identif...

This paper aims to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) governing the usage of building information modelling (BIM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) for monitoring and digitally managing a construction project in Ahmedabad, a mega city in India. The workflow of BIM-ERP module has been integrated with Internet of Things (IoT) platfor...

Rail infrastructure projects are complex and capital intensive and involve an array of stakeholders. As a result, proper risk management in these projects is crucial for their successful completion. In developing countries such as India, most rail projects experience delays and cost overruns. The present study was conducted in the Indian constructi...

Resource management is a critical task in construction projects because resources account for a large part of the total project cost. It helps in the availability of resources at the right time and cost. Classification of resources and their optimizations is needed to enhance the time and cost-effectiveness of resource management. However, the stud...

Heritage assets play a significant role in India's social, cultural, and economic progress. The heritage sector contributes to the country's economy by providing tourist attractions, maintaining and preserving heritage sites, commercial activities within heritage precincts, and research opportunities. These benefits have drawn considerable attentio...

The Government collects the labour welfare fund for which employers and employees contribute to ensuring basic amenities and facilities for the workers. While several studies have highlighted the importance of labour welfare funds, very few have emphasized the issues of underutilization of labour welfare funds. To address this gap, this study attem...

The construction sector is a major contributor to economic activities in a developing country like India. Hence, it becomes inevitable to continuously monitor performance of the Indian construction companies to take adequate steps for their improvement. This study aims to develop a financial performance evaluation framework (FPEF) for construction...

Sustainable material management (SMM) has great potential to lower the adverse environmental and social impacts of construction, which is a major concern. However, studies of SMM and its barriers and enablers in the construction industry are limited. Moreover, past studies failed to examine how these barriers and enablers influence the implementati...

The impact of digital technologies to the domain of cultural heritage has increased the speed and automation of the processes and practices that involve processing and presentation of digital heritage data. Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) can play a key role towards the conservation, preservation, and managem...

Purpose Across the architecture, engineering and construction industry, the application of building information modelling (BIM) as a digital technology for architectural heritage is becoming increasingly relevant. However, scholarly research on the application of BIM for architectural heritage is still in its infancy stage and the research gaps and...

Workplace training aims to enhance the performance of trainees by improving their specific skills. Unfortunately, the outcome of such trainings in terms of the percentage of increase in trainees' performance is not generally measured. On one hand, this lack of measurement results in contractors not recognizing the importance of training in enhancin...

Even though no toll road project delivery alternative is perfect in handling the variability of project characteristics, a specific delivery approach is better suited than another based on the specific requirements of a particular project. In this regard, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is implementing a range of toll road delivery...

Purpose This paper aims to use a data-driven approach towards optimizing construction operations. To this extent, it presents a machine learning (ML)-aided optimization approach, wherein the construction cost is predicted as a function of time, resources and environmental impact, which is further used as a surrogate model for cost optimization. De...

Any occupation requires a certain set of competencies at a given employment level. Although in the construction industry the competency requirements for mid-and upper-level employees are very well defined, such clear definitions at the workers' level are missing. Literature suggests that along with practical skills, workers require additional socio...

In this globally connected world, construction sites are becoming multicultural workplaces. Workers from different places, cultures, and social backgrounds are increasing workplace diversity. However, the literature shows that workplace diversity can have a negative influence on workers' performance. The findings suggest that, when workers who spea...

Procuring the correct materials at the right time and for the lowest cost is essential in construction. This fact underlines the importance of an optimized material procurement schedule integrated with the construction schedule/program. However, few studies examine the development of a material procurement schedule by integrating the construction s...

Equipment productivity plays a vital role in the successful completion of a construction project. Since concrete is used as a primary construction material in many construction projects, low productivity of concreting equipment affects both project cost and schedule. The present study proposes a queuing model to improve the productivity of concreti...

Concrete production must commensurate with increasing demand for infrastructure development in both developed and developing countries. It is essential that concreting equipment be adequately maintained through effective monitoring and control for their optimum usage. Unforeseen breakdowns and inefficient monitoring techniques could result in low p...

Quality and safety are important and are the leading concerns in a construction project. Planning a project without properly incorporating these two performance parameters propagates multifarious defects and accidents in construction projects and this ultimately leads to cost overrun and time delay. In order to deal with quality and safety at the p...

An appropriate material-management strategy requires estimation of, and classification based on, the lead time of construction materials. To estimate the lead time precisely, the identification of the factors that influence it is essential. Previous studies in material management have not comprehensively examined the factors that influence lead tim...

Financial ratio analysis has been instrumental over the years to evaluate the financial state of construction companies. However, such an analysis is tedious owing to the presence of a large number of financial ratios corresponding to different construction companies. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the significant financial per...

The rapid growth in the construction industry demands a large consumption of construction materials thereby, depicting the importance of material management in construction. However, the material management process in the construction industry is still in its infancy, especially in developing countries. Moreover, material management studies focusin...

With the growing construction works over the world, the waste generated from construction and demolition is increasing at an enormous rate. In India, 50 million tons (MT) of construction and demolition waste (CDW) was generated in 2013. With the passage of time, several obsolete and structurally weak buildings in various cities will need to be demo...

Worldwide, governments have exploited a range of contractual structures to cope with the change of project characteristics and role of stakeholders in the evolution of the approach to public–private partnerships (PPPs). This has brought about the establishment of various PPP models that enable the successful implementation of projects. In this rega...

Despite previously successfully delivery of toll roads through public-private partnership (PPP), inexperienced (new) markets are more susceptible to failures due to the complexities involved in this approach, which have created distrust in inexperienced road sector markets in considering implemention of PPP. These markets lack the identification of...

Worker behavior is one of the factors that influences construction labor productivity (CLP). This notion is discussed extensively in the literature; however, in most of these studies, the relation between behavior and productivity is either explained theoretically or demonstrated deductively. Moreover, the literature on psychology suggests that the...

Multistory building construction projects involve time and economy considerations. In this study, an approach to determine a time-optimized solution for speedy construction using a genetic algorithm for a multistory building is used. An objective function is formulated for minimizing the reinforced cement concrete (RCC) work duration, subject to ce...

Water disputes have been observed to be almost commonplace in developed as well as developing/underdeveloped nations. The history of such problems is in many cases centuries old. Thus, the economy of water-stressed nations has been adversely affected over the course of time. The nature of disputes-and the stakeholders involved-has also been changin...

An effective material management system is key to the success of construction projects. However, the Indian construction industry suffers from many material management issues that lead to ineffectiveness in the material management system. Previous studies in the field have not comprehensively examined the issues affecting the schedule and cost perf...

River water projects are easily susceptible to interstate or intercountry disputes, because water is a fundamental resource for life. However, limited studies have reported on transboundary river water disputes. Moreover, such studies are rarely conducted based upon empirical evidence. In addition, the implications of disputes are seldom reported....

Waste generated throughout the construction and demolition (C&D) process has become a great challenge and hindrance toward the sustainable development as it creates environmental degradation. Proper management of the construction and demolition waste is a complex process and requires a lot of analytical thinking. This necessitates developing some s...

Aptitude is the potential to demonstrate the ability to perform a certain kind of work at a certain level. While several studies have highlighted the relationship between aptitude and employee performance, very few have tested such a relationship using empirical data, especially in the construction domain. Therefore, to address this gap, this study...

Poor performance of workers is a perennial problem for the construction industry worldwide. While there have been many studies reporting the influence of motivation on construction labor productivity (CLP), much of the evidence has been anecdotal in nature. Therefore, to address this gap, the objective of this study is to explore the relationships...

Purpose A number of previous studies have investigated international construction project risks and have proposed risk mitigation measures without examining their interdependence. The purpose of the current study is to identify the influence of various risk mitigation measures on macro-level risk factors in the international marketplace. Design/me...

The safety of the structure during construction depends on the load transfer mechanism from slab to shore making these components important in the horizontal formwork system. The data has been collected from India and the selection criteria for single and multi-leg shores for horizontal formwork system has been developed using the principal compone...

The timely completion of public construction projects is an essential consideration from social, economic, and political perspectives. However, the complex socioeconomic and political environments in war-affected countries impact the schedule performance in construction projects. Because of prolonged war and conflicts, buildings and infrastructure...

Construction materials contribute to 50-60% of the project cost, and thus material management becomes very important. Prioritization of procurement of materials is rarely linked with construction schedule of a project which creates problems, especially in a budget constraint situation. Thus, the purpose of this study is to integrate material manage...

Currently, heritage is challenged in the Indian city of Surat due to diverse pressures, including rapid urbanization, increasing housing demand, and socio-cultural and climate changes. Where rapid demographic growth of urban areas is happening, heritage is disappearing at an alarming rate. Despite some efforts from the local government, urban cultu...

Public–private partnership (PPP) projects came to prominence with the launch of the National Highway Development Project in India in 1998. Since then, the PPP procurement approach to service delivery has permeated the transportation sector and its subsectors of highways, ports, airports, and railways. Many of these projects have suffered cost and t...

There is a huge gap between the growth and demand of the road and highway sector in India. This sector carries a large percentage of freight and passengers. Before commencement of the project, obtaining environmental clearance (EC), forest clearance (FC), wildlife clearance, and coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) clearance (if required) is a necessity....

Purpose International construction projects encompass various risks, and it is essential to evaluate and manage them to achieve project and firms’ success. As approaches to addressing international market risks vary from one country to another, the purpose of this paper is to identify the critical risk factors of embarking on international construc...

Because of stiff competition in the construction business, it is necessary for construction companies to measure their performance on a regular interval for long-term survival. Therefore, it is imperative for construction companies to determine the parameters critical to the measurement of their performance. This study identifies the performance in...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the problems faced by banks, lenders, financial institutions, public authority, developers and concessionaires in course of financing of public‒private partnership (PPP) road projects. Subsequently, the reasons that contribute to these problems were analyzed to come up with recommendations for mitiga...