Contractors continue their protests against government

 Kathmandu, Aug. 13

Police arrested about 50 contractors on Sunday while they were padlocking the office of the Department of Irrigation.

The arrested construction entrepreneurs were released on the same day after keeping at the Lalitpur Police Circle in Jawalakhel for a couple of hours after the protesting contractors reached there and demanded their release.

Likewise, the contractors under the leadership of the Federation of Contractors Associations of Nepal (FCAN) padlocked the internal rooms of the Department of Roads (DoR) at Chakupat, Lalitpur, and staged a sit-in protest at the office. FCAN President Rabi Singh led a group of construction entrepreneurs to padlock the DoR office. Senior Vice President of FCAN, Ang Dorji Lama (A.D) led the padlocking team to the Department of Irrigation at Jawalakhel.

They chanted slogans demanding that the government should fulfil their demands like extending the deadline of all delayed and sick projects, applying the same criteria and rules, and paying their remaining dues.

Issuing a statement, the FCAN said that the programmes were pre-set.

Speaking at the protest programme, Singh said that the construction industry was on the way to collapse due to government indifference and the contractors have been facing huge trouble due to the lack of coordination among the government agencies.

"Our demands are less business-centric and more futuristic so that we could make the construction industry prosperous and could contribute better to the national development," he said. 

 Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 14 August 2023.