Background: Tuberculosis (TB) has haunted the human race since time immemorial and continued to do so. In countries like India, the challenge lies not only in providing effective treatment but also in reducing the interval between suspecting TB and actually initiating the treatment. RNTCP emphasized on initiation of treatment within 7 days of diagnosis for patients with sputum smear‑positive pulmonary TB (SS‑PTB) as an indicator for monitoring DOTS implementation. Objective:1. To find out the proportion of patients having delay in diagnosis and delay ininitiation oftreatment among newly diagnosed drug sensitive pulmonary tuberculosis patients of Gadag district 2. To describe associated factors responsible for total delay in treatment. Methods: A cross-sectional study done among the 134 newly diagnosed TB patients of two Tubercular units selected randomly in the study period during June to August 2022. Results: In our study mean total delay in treatment was 39.9±5.6 days (median: 40days, IQR5), patient delay 5.3±0.4 days, diagnosis delay consisting of 27.4±1.5 days and treatment initiation delay as 7.2±0.7 days. Among the mean total delay in treatment s 39.9days, diagnostic delay (67.5%) holds the major concern followed by delay in treatment initiation (18.2%) and patient delay consisting of 13.2%. Conclusion: The delay in treatment initiation of TB was defined and estimated as Patient delay, diagnostic delay and treatment delay, out of these three delays, diagnostic delay was found to be major contributing in total.