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| Contractors slam govt for not clearing their dues | | Threaten to stop ongoing works | | Early Times Report
Jammu, June 15 : Jammu and Kashmir Contractors Coordination Committee, an apex body of all the civil contractors of Jammu and Kashmir Saturday took a dig at the state government for failing to clear the pending work done claims of contractors 'which have now reached up to Rs 700 crores.' Addressing a press conference General Secretary of the organization Sardar Balvinder Singh informed that some claims of the contractors were four to five years old. "Several of our colleagues have taken loans even from private persons as well as from the financial institutions with hefty interest rates and with the dilly dallying approach of the government in clearing our dues we are forced to pay the interests which has now reached equal to the principle amount of loan," he said.
Demanding immediate release of the claims along with interest, he said, "Why should the contractors bear the loss due to the negligence of engineers and politicians who force them to complete work even without arranging the required funds in advance." "Though Chief Minister has introduced the e-tendering system which was being welcomed by all the members JKCCC but our hopes from the CM also shattered when he failed to mention the time frame for payments to the contractor after the completion of the work even in the e-tendering system," Singh added.
Both Sham Singh and Vinod Kohli General Secretary of Registered Contractors Association appreciated the spirit behind the introduction of New Civil System of accounting but criticize the way the govt has switched over to the System of Accounting "without doing home work on its working and without consulting the stake holders, and without issuing clear cut directions to the finance department for clearing the pendency in different treasuries of the State, with the result even the bills whose payment has already been released by the govt , are not cleared by the Treasury officers because of the callous and unlawful attitude of the finance department who want to encroach upon the jurisdiction of the executive departments which is not in their mandate."
Both the contractor representatives urged upon the government to give one time exemption to all the works executed before 31/03/2012 and issue strict warnings not only to the engineers, not to start the work without getting it sanctioned from the competent authority and till the release of funds, "but also direct all the cabinet ministers, MLAs/MLCs not to lay the foundation stone of any un approved works in future."
Other prominent contractors who were present in the press conference included Ravinder Nath, Sharma Narinder Gupta, Mahesh Kotwal, Manmohan Singh, Sharanjit Singh, Kuldeep Kumar, Vijay Kumar, Prem Singh and Subash Chander. |
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