Programme, Baseline and Critical Path: Schedule Control on Indian Projects

A construction programme is worth only what it can later prove. This report sets out what a defensible programme requires on Indian projects: how the baseline is approved and frozen, how the critical path is calculated rather than asserted, who owns float, and what makes the record admissible when an extension of time is fought years afterwards. It works from the published texts of IS 15883 (Part 2):2013 and the current IS 14580 (Part 1):2020, with the edition status of every standard cited checked against the BIS catalogue, from the programme clauses of the CPWD General Conditions of Contract 2019 and the NHAI Standard EPC Agreement, and from the SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol (2nd edition, 2017), which the Delhi High Court quoted in February 2026 when upholding a critical-path-based extension of 484 days.

Part of AECS Research Global's publications programme — drawing on ARG's work across cost management, EPC advisory and integrated project delivery. Download the full report below.