I want to know, what should be the action taken by civil engineers if on-site slump test fails.

Should the contractors be allowed to continue the concreting works?

This is a very classical question raised by many graduate engineers. In fact, there are
two schools of thought regarding this issue.
The first school of thought is rather straightforward: the contractor fails to comply
with contractual requirements and therefore as per G. C. C. Clause 54 (2)(c) the
engineer could order suspension of the Works. Under the conditions of G. C. C. Clause
54(2)(a) (d), the contractor is not entitled to any claims of cost which is the main
concern for most engineers.
This is the contractual power given to the Engineer in case of any failure in tests
required by the contract, even though some engineers argue that slump tests are not
as important as other tests like compression test.
The second school of thought is to let the contractor to continue their concreting
works and later on request the contractor to prove that the finished works comply
with other contractual requirements e.g. compression test. This is based upon the
belief that workability is mainly required to achieve design concrete compression
strength. In case the compression test also fails, the contractor should demolish and
reconstruct the works accordingly. In fact, this is a rather passive way of treating
construction works and is not recommended because of the following reasons:

Workability of freshly placed concrete is related not only to strength but also to
durability of concrete. Even if the future compression test passes, failing in slump test
indicates that it may have adverse impact to durability of completed concrete
structures.

In case the compression test fails, the contractor has to deploy extra time and
resources to remove the work and reconstruct them once again and this slows down
the progress of works significantly. Hence, in view of such likely probability of
occurrence, why shouldnt the Engineer exercise his power to stop the contractor and
save these extra time and cost?