Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 8: The bills of scores of contractors worth crores are lying pending for the PHE works that were taken up under the Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC) Limited across Kashmir.
The contractors said that for the last more than three months, their bills are not being cleared by the Department despite the works being already completed due to which they are facing several issues.
Under the JKIDFC, the PHE projects that were languishing were taken up and for that works were tendered out; however, despite the completion of such projects, the bills worth crores have not been cleared by the JKIDFC.
As per officials, the JKIDFC was facing some issues with the banks that lend them the money and that the Corporation has been stating that the matter will be resolved soon.
“We have completed the work, and for that, we had taken up loans from the banks,” a contractor from Baramulla said, adding that while they are not able to pay back the loaned amount to the bank, they are left with no option but to pay extra in terms of the interest.
The issue of pending bills was being raised by the contractors for the last more than three months, and in March it was stated that the matter would be resolved by April, however, so far, there has been no change on the ground.
Officials of the PHE Department told Excelsior that they had already taken up the matter with the JKIDFC and that the matter will be resolved soon.
“They were facing some issues with the banks and we had raised the issue of pending bills already with the JKIDFC; they had stated that the matter will be resolved soon, and we are hoping that by Monday, the matter will be resolved,” Director Finance, Jal Shakti Department Latif Ahmad Poswal said.
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