Suhail Bhat
SRINAGAR, Jan 25: Nearly one and a half year has passed but the bills worth several thousand crore rupees of contractors who did flood restoration are still pending under State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF).
Jammu and Kashmir Contractors Coordination Committee (JKCCC) chairman, Ghulam Jeelani Purza, said the government owes them Rs 3650.12 crores. “Out of this, Rs 665.118 crores for Public Health Engineering (PHE), Rs 19101.86 crores for Flood and Irrigation works and Rs 60.23 crores for mechanical engineering works and Rs. 977.23 for Roads and Building works”, he said.
Purza said besides these works, they also did temporary restoration works post-floods like washing hospitals, closing breaches, clearing the muck from schools and installing new furniture.
“These figures have been produced by the committee headed by Deputy Commissioners of the respective districts after physically verifying the work done under SDRF. At that time Chief Engineer approached me and said State needs your services and don’t bother about funds, we have funds available with us. Once you are done with the work. We will give you the money immediately’,” he said.
“We went door to door to rope in contractors to do the job. Our houses were also inundated but we choose the work for larger good of society. Government has clearly deceived us,” Purza lamented.
The contractors said under permanent restoration R&B Department owes them Rs 1000 crores which includes over Rs 700 crores for black topping of more than 1400 kilometres roads across the valley and construction of Pavements.
“They have given just Rs 125 crores for the stock only that means to purchase cement and steel,” said Gulzar Ahmad Reshi, the vice president of Jammu and Kashmir Contractors Coordination Committee, adding: “we are pleading for past year but no one is listening to us. Now it’s difficult to feed our families. We are suffering immensely.”
Chief Engineer R&B Satish Razdan meanwhile when contacted said they have released funds “but partially”. “We are expecting release of all funds before the commencement of current financial year,” he added.
An official at Irrigation and Flood Control Department said the Government has not released any funds. “But Chief Secretary recently held a meeting regarding this and it is expected that Government will release the funds in the first week of next month,” he said.
When asked about why they were issuing fresh tenders if they had not cleared the past bills, he said: “The tenders are issued only for the project works not the temporary ones.”
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