Satyanarayana Kalidindi N

Privatized infrastructure development is becoming increasingly common in India as a means for providing infrastructure services without directly impacting the sovereign finance. This paper focuses on some of the key issues related to the management of privatized infrastructure development in India such as various developmental and operational risks, lack of a comprehensive risk management tool suitable for domestic environment, difficulty in obtaining finance from both domestic and foreign financiers, need of careful capital structuring, absence of adequate legal framework for the project, role of project consultants, and importance of organizational characteristics of the promoter firm. Need for developing standard conditions of contract clauses applicable to BOT type procurement system is also highlighted.

Most Indian construction contracts while specifying the role and responsibilities of parties in the contracts, also specify certain extraordinary powers to a particular person whose decisions are final and binding to both the parties. These decisions are administrative in nature and they are neither open to arbitration nor to any court of law. They are meant to prevent disputes and are taken in the overall interests of the project. However, in practice, the disputes arise due to varied interpretations of certain technical terms in a contract, unclear domain of "final and binding power" (FBP), or owner's intentions in giving decisions under FBP and thereby preventing contractors from referring the matter to an arbitrator. Based on a legal case study, primary guidelines are formulated to evaluate the applicability and acceptability of decisions under FBP. These guidelines are presented as a decision diagram in this paper. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

Deviation clauses in construction contracts followed by various departments of Government of India are regarded as sources of disputes. This paper identifies and presents a study on problem areas pertaining to deviations such as nature of clauses, their improper application, financial hindrances to contractors and time delay in completion of project due to deviation. The study was conduected on CPWD and MES forms of contracts. A questionnaire survey was conducted and responses were received from 147 professionals (92 senior Government officials, 44 contractors and 11 consultants). Student's t-test was performed to analyse various mean values of responses. The study revealed that the deviation limit clause is ambiguous in its current form and professionals prefer that it should be replaced by a simpler clause based on certain percentage of quantities of individual items of deviations. However, a few professionals have expressed a different opinion. The study also concluded that time delay in finalising rates of items of deviations and ordering deviation towards completion of work are other critical issues which should be avoided.

The construction engineer must have the ability to apply current and emerging computer technology to problem solving and management. The use of computer technology in the construction industry is found to be lagging behind other industries. There is a considerable need to create awareness about computer applications and the necessity of training among the construction professionals. The issue of education and training of construction engineers in computer applications and IT have been addressed at two levels in this paper: undergraduate and postgraduate course work, and training of practising engineers. The need for the engineer to be life-long learners and the increasing importance of web-based education for this purpose has been discussed.