Ludhiana, November 6
The deadlock between contractors and civic administration continues here with no immediate signs of compromise even after a series of meetings between the representatives of contractors and senior MC officials, including the newly appointed Commissioner, Mr R.L. Kalsia, during the past few days.
Claims by the MC that the attitude of contractors was positive and the matter would be sorted out soon, notwithstanding, the dissenting contractors were said to be adamant and were demanding the abolition of an outside quality control agency - SGS India, besides assured time bound payments for the development works, executed on behalf of the civic body.
The contractors, numbering over 200, have been boycotting the tendering process of the MC for the past two months, leading to disruption and delay of several development projects, on which work was in progress or was to be started. A number of calls for tenders, issued during the period, have failed to evoke any response from the contractors who are determined to see that their main demands are accepted before they resume offering bids for the MC works.
The civic administration had engaged SGS India to ensure quality control in the works executed by the contractors on behalf of engineering branch, initially for the Rs 12.70 crore Budha Nullah project. In one of the general house meetings during last year, it showed a massive saving on the basis of SGS reports. The purview of the quality control agency, was later widened to include all works carried out by the engineering department of the civic body.
Inquiries made by Ludhiana Tribune revealed that the contractors, who had initially resolved not to respond to the call for tenders by the MC on the basis of financial crunch once the octroi was abolished, later trained their guns on the SGS India, whom they not only charged with being technical incompetent to carry out the assigned job but also with breeding more corruption. A leading contractor, remarked that the contractors had to pay ‘over and above the routine percentage’ to obtain a favourable report from the firm.
The logic of the contractors against the outside quality control agency of duplicating the same job, is why can’t the quality control be ensured by the scores of technically qualified engineers of the civic body and why should the MC bear a heavy burden of their hefty salaries if outside help was needed for the task.
It is learnt that group leaders of the councillors belonging to the ruling SAD-BJP combine, as well as the Congress, who were present in the meeting between the MC Commissioner and the representatives of contractors had also extended their support to the demand of the contractors and the matter was likely to be discussed in the meeting of the Finance and Contracts Committee (F&CC), to be held here later in the evening today, and also in the next general house meeting of the MC on November 9.
Sources in the MC revealed that other demands apart, the apprehension of the contractors about their payments being delayed or withheld were unfounded. “Atleast for the time being, the MC is in the best of financial health and payments are being made in routine to the contractors, except for certain delays here and there, caused purely due to administrative reasons,” the sources maintained.
