Factors Affecting Performance of Small Hydropower Construction Projects in Nepal
Year: 2018

Hydropower Construction leads other construction by providing energy along with infrastructure and employment. It was always a matter of concern for Academician and Professional to know the factor affecting performance in Hydropower Project. This study is an attempt to identify the factors with their relative importance. The most significant factor that affects the construction performance of hydropower project is quality control of materials, adequacy of design and specification, overall management practices, skillful workers and insufficient supply of materials. Positive correlation in rank of factors among client, consultant and contractor were found. It is clear that the performance management enhances the profitability of project; however other factor such as social issues as well as internal management plays the vital role. Only the time management and saving in cost does not enhance the construction performance of project. The construction organization should incorporate the identified factors in practice for enhancing the performance of hydropower construction.  Factors, Ranking and Correlation  More than 90% budget of the Hydropower projects is used in construction phase. It is the main part of the project life cycle. Most of the hydropower projects in Nepal have not been completed on time and within the estimated cost. Time and cost overrun in hydropower projects are very common problems. Till date, in case of hydropower projects in Nepal, there is no any specific research in the field of performance enhancement in local level. The economic development and growth of any country also depends on the performance of construction mega projects or any other multi dimensional developmental sector. With a view to Provide information for local experts, decision makers and those foreign experts approaching in the region to work for Hydropower development, it is necessary to study on factors affecting construction performance and its association among client, consultant and contractor of any hydropower projects. The research to endorse the factors affecting the performance of the hydropower construction and its association between client, consultants and contractors to set the benchmark for the construction related issues. Due to availability of very few researches in the area, the research is highly demanded.  The objective of the research is to evaluate the most significant factors affecting the performance and to verify the association between the role of client, consultant and contractors regarding the ranking of key performance indicators of selected runoff river (RoR) type hydropower projects developed by Independent Power Producers (IPP'S) LITERARURE REVIEW 2.1 Factors Affecting the Performance of Managers Usefulness is defined in literature as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance performance (Seddon and Kiew, 1996) The ability of the project manager is one of the major factors affecting the performance. Also the effort and motivation pays high level of value in the performance. According to OIPT, organizations face different levels of uncertainty, i.e. "the difference between the amount of information available and the amount of information required to perform the task at the desired level of performance" (Galbraith, 1973) The restrictive policies of the organization may have prevented the individual from using their imitative and imagination to the extent that they wished influencing the performance of managers. The need for focused effort by economy managers and construction industry associations to provide the infrastructure needed for efficient project management and performance (Ogunlana, et. al. 1996) Navon (2005) stated that data are collected and used for construction managers as a basis to evaluate the project performance indicators (PPI) actual value to compare it with the planned value and forecast its future value based on past performance. 2006) identified the importance of the working environment variables for the performance of a project manager in the private and public sectors according to three main groups which are job condition, project characteristic and organizational related categories. The result revealed that working hours, physical condition of project site, complexity of project, material and supplies, project size, duration of project and time availability were viewed differently in terms of importance by the contractors and consultants groups. Team relationship is classified as the most important variable affecting the performance of a project manager. It is obtained that project manager's experiences do not have much effect on how they perceive their working environment.  The goal of a construction project is simple it is to build something. What differentiates the construction industry from other industries is that its projects are large, built on site and generally unique (Gould, 2002) Yehia (2004) studied time schedule preparation by predicting production rate using simulation.  2005) studied the improvement of safety performance in construction projects in the Gaza Strip. Al Khaldi (2006) evaluated performance of Beit Lahia waste water treatment plant in the Northern Gaza Strip. Enshassietal (2006) studied causes of contractor's business failure in developing countries. Factors were grouped together to only five main groups which are: Managerial: managerial factors are mainly related to experience, decisions, procurement, control, productivity, communication and claims factors Financial: financial factors are mainly related to loans, cash flow, profit, expenditures, material wastages, equipment cost and usage, and variation order Business growth: Business growth factors are mainly related to managerial development, size of projects, type of work and number of projects Business environment: Business environment factors are mainly related to regulations, awarding, economy, owner involvement and accounting practices Political: Political factors are mainly related to delay, closure, lack of resource, high cost of materials, banks policy and dealing with suppliers The results showed that political group is the most important influencing factor on contractor's business failure in Palestine. Otherwise, Business growth and Business environment had been ranked as the lowest influencing factors on failure. 2.3 Practice of Hydropower Construction in Nepal Client, consultants and contractor used S curve, critical path and bar chart for the planning and scheduling the project. The monitoring, updating and controlling of the project progress were most effective every week. The coordination of scheduling at different milestone of project was satisfactorily conducted. MS project were used for planning and scheduling of the project. Moreover, the cost management in construction project is very important for the performance and profitability. All the parties involved in the project had association of cost schedule with estimated time schedule. The concept of actual value and earned value did not apply for the control of cost. Also, for plan, monitoring and control of cost, software was not used. Furthermore, in most cases, an overall project safety factors had been moderately implemented in construction organizations. This is because of absence of safety control or its application through project implementation stage. There are many contractors did not care with applying health and safety factors during construction of projects. In addition, consultants do not have sufficient control or continuous supervision for safety application. All of that will lead to occurrence of accidents and problems in construction projects(Chiluwal and Mishra, 2017) Upper hugdi khola hydropower project had completed before 6 month and the saving in the cost was NRs. 65,521,000 but the financial indicators of the project decreased than the estimated because of the generation loss of the project at the time of project operation. Many other external factors were there to lag the performance of the project. Only the save in time and cost does not increase the profitability of project. On the other hand, Bijaypur khola hydropower project had taken additional 6 month and NRs. 110,014,000 to complete the project. Due to the time and cost overrun of the project, the financial indicators of the project decreased (Chiluwal and Mishra ,2018) METHODOLOGY Research Approach Qualitative as well as quantitative research approach has been used since the collected data were analyzed and presented with proportions and means according to the nature of the data. Depending upon the nature of the result, the perceived performance affecting factors were categorized where necessary. 3.1 Study Population and Sample Selection In this study, the population means all small hydropower projects which are in commercial operation phase and in the final stage of construction all over the Nepal. More than 38 small hydropower projects are in commercial operation (DoED, 2017) and more than 15 small hydropower projects are in final stage of construction (DoED) 3.2 Sample Size All the project parties Client, Consultant and Contractors like Civil contractor, Hydro mechanical contractor, Electromechanical contractor and Transmission line contractor were interviewed on objectives of this research.  Questionnaire has been developed in such a way that include participant from clients, consultants, contractors.