The size of the Indian construction industry is growing at a substantial rate. The Global Construction Perspectives, UK, and Oxford Economics, UK, predict that by 2020, Indian construction market will be worth almost $650 mn, making up to 5% of world’s total construction output (Global Construction, 2020). Emerging construction markets in Asia-Pacific will grow by an estimated 125% till 2020. India will overtake Japan by 2020 to become the third largest global construction market after China and USA. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan of Government of India allocates $492 bn for infrastructure development over the period 2007-2012. The residential demand for the period 2010-2014 is estimated to be approximately 4.25 million units, of which mid-range and affordable sectors continue to capture a significant share of 70% (www.buisness-standard.com/india/news).

These figures indicate the tremendous growth of Indian construction industry. All the structures are composed of different types of materials. These materials are either called building materials or materials of construction. Building materials account for 50 to 80% of the total cost of building and hence play a very vital role in the construction of buildings (Arora and Bindra, 1994). Hence it is important that building materials must be made easily available and affordable to reduce the cost of construction. The huge construction growth had boosted the demand for various construction materials. Hence the rising cost and nonavailability of traditional building materials have created a bottleneck in building construction projects. Because of the rising cost, it is very difficult for construction agencies to control the cost of material. Moreover, it has been revealed that the construction sector is producing unacceptable levels of waste (Ekanayake and George, 2004). Material wastage can be defined as difference between the theoretical and actual consumption of the material. According to the report of Technology Information Forecasting Assessment Council (TIFAC), the total amount of waste from construction industry is estimated to be 12 to 14.7 million tons per annum. Out of which, 7.8 million tons are concrete and brick waste (TIFAC, 2002). Reduction of the consumption of these building materials either by replacing the traditional building materials or by controlling their waste is the only way to control the cost.

In order to minimize wastage of material and generating waste, construction agencies can use a variety of new alternative materials and methods, and adopt new designs, efficient construction management and good planning, etc. These ways definitely can reduce the wastage of materials and help in reducing the cost of construction. From the literature review, it is observed that limited research has been done to quantify wastage levels of different construction materials. Therefore, this research study was undertaken to find out the percentage wastage of different construction materials in building construction projects.

Structural Engineering Journal, Material Wastage, Building Construction, Global Construction Perspectives, Research Problem, Limitations of the Study, Assumption of the Study, Materials and Methods.