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.
No comments:
Post a Comment