Contractors protest ! accuse XEN of demanding 2 to 5% extra commission to be allegedly paid to higher authorities in Uttarakhand

Arvind Moudgil, a senior journalist and a wild life and environmental actvist from Pauri Garhwal who’ve been greatly instrumental in highlighting socio political stories of Garhwal region minutely analysing the various aspects of the problems of hill people has put a unique picture on facebook exhibiting an office chair of the high profile excecutive engineer of the public works department duly covered with the white towel and two papers attached over them reading KURSI KA GHERAO ( Gherao of the chair) and ,” MIN BHRASHTACHAAR KI JANANI HOON” (I am the mother of Corruption).

These stickers with slogans exposing the Pauri, Garhwal district’s executive engineer as a corrupt were stuck on his chair bynone other but the contractors of Pauri, Garhwal carrying out various construction and repair works under the jurisdictin of the state PWD. These works include construction of roads, repair works, filling pot halls on roads, construction of road sidecemented fencing etc etc. Who does know that in India for every developmental work an alleged commission of few percentage is distributed amongst the engineers n bureaucrats connected with tendering or execution of various works of construction, repairs or renovation in states n the centre by the contractors as a set practice but when limits are crossed even Thekedaars, particularly of limited works find them selves in financial quandary and thus have to resprt to agitational methods knowing very well that it can also harm their future prospects and this is what has happened in Pauri Garhwal district.

According to senior journalist the local contractors have in his absence find a unique way to register their protest against the harrasment being meted out to them by the Executive Engineer PWD by way of sticking two slogan written hand posters saying Kurshi ka gherao and main bhrastachar ki janani hoon. The contractors have also sent a written complaint to the Sub Divisional Magistrate of Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand that the executive engineer is charging the two to five percent extra commission in addition to what they habe been paying under the pretext that the same has to be paid to the higher authorities to get the money/ funds sanction for various works allotted to these contractors.

After the protest and subsequent written complaints from the contractors it was unanimously decided by the erring XEN that in the new future (1) The tendering process wouldbe transparent in future, (2) No work would be done under the pressure of the politicians, (3) All the pending payments would be cleared forthwith, (4) The CCL would be allocated equally in all the blocks and (5) All the registered contractors would be allocated the work on mandatory basis.

A written mutual agreement has been arrived at, in this respect under the signatures of the XEN and all the registered protesting contractors. Sounds interesting that the contractors finally got the justice but no where is there a mention of the commision to be paid in future or notand commitment that all the works would be in satisfactory condition under the government’s prescribed norms and conditions. What’s your take friends?