Building Sustainable Construction through the Adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM)

The Indian construction industry plays a critical role in its socio-economic development and it will be a leading sector for the vision "Viksit Bharat @2047". However, this industry face several challenges such as cost overruns, time delays, material wastage, and poor inter-disciplinary coordination. These shortfalls leads to revision of the estimate, fine on Government Contractors, requirement of new administrative approval from the Government and ultimately all the stakeholders associated with the project suffers in many ways. The vision of "Viksit Bharat cannot be obtained without digitization of construction sector which contributes to around 8.29 % of annual GDP. For India to attain its vision it needs that all the state of India grows with the same pace. These Construction issues are often intensified in small-scale projects, especially in regions with limited digital infrastructure and technical capacity like Bihar (specifically Patna). In response to these construction issues, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has emerged as a transformative approach that supports the digitization of construction workflows by integrating 3D modeling with scheduling, cost estimation, sustainability, and facility management dimensions. Despite the advantages, BIM adoption in India, particularly in small-scale and government projects, remains limited due to several barriers including financial constraints, lack of awareness, insufficient technical capacity, and absence of standardized data environments. This paper explores the adoption and integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a transformative approach in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, emphasizing its benefits in enhancing project performance, minimizing errors and rework, and facilitating informed decision-making. This paper set out to explore the transformative potential of BIM in addressing long-standing inefficiencies within the construction industry, particularly in the context of small-scale projects in Bihar’s Patna region. Through an extensive literature review, technical simulations, and casebased observations, the study aimed to identify the role of BIM across various project lifecycle stages and its effectiveness in optimizing material, time, cost, and human resources. Parallelly, the research investigated the key barriers impeding BIM adoption in the regional context, focusing on awareness, organizational, market and client availability, technical, financial, policy-related challenges and maturity of BIM utilization. To support collaborative digital workflows, the study also proposed a conceptual context-specific Common Data Environment (CDE) framework aligned with CPWD BIM Guidelines 2024. This study consolidates the insights gained, evaluates the broader implications, and provides recommendations for future practice and research.