Dimapur, December 18 (MExN): The Nagaland Government Registered Class-I Contractors Union (NGRC-I CU) has conveyed high appreciation and assured full support to the closure of the office of Project Engineering, Police Project, Chumukedima by the Nagaland Contractors and Suppliers Union’s (NCSU). In a note received here, the NGRC-I CU stated, that with the festive Christmas season, many local contractors are suffering due to non-payment of bills and questioned as to what was so special about non-local contractors including M/s Mohan Singh and Co that the state machinery was giving extra special treatment to them. The union stated that the Finance department had given clearance for payment of Rs. 24.10 crores to the contractors of the Saijang Police Project which had once created a big controversy for violating ‘tender norms’.
The sanction of the huge bill for contractors of Saijang project, while bills of local contractors lay pending, are stated to have led to the NCSU’s agitation. The NGRC-I CU has assured full support and cooperation to the NSCU for further action saying that it was “a very serious case where the local contractors are being badly victimized and discriminated”.
The NGRC-I CU further complained that many files are piling and even ‘lying on the floors of the department officials of Finance and Planning Civil Secretariat of the state’ while the “high and mighty officials” cause ‘stagnation’ of files. They turn a deaf ear to contractors who work to develop the state, it stated. “Contractors and public have become helpless beggars who have to beg and worship officials and the machinery so that they can perform their duty” stated the note.
The union also pointed out that 70 % of the total money of the state was spent on salary of government servants while only 30 % was left for supplies and development works and even that amount was being “totally strangulated by the government machinery and released only to favoured ones. Terming this as the height of injustice and a total disregard for merit, the NGRC-I CU said that by fueling such practices, the Naga society was slowing falling into lawlessness and decadence.
NGRC-I CU further demanded to know if the Government of Nagaland can institute a committee to rectify the abnormal and rampant corruption which has crept into the system and also bring out the reason for the ongoing ‘impasse of non release of payment of bills’ for work done despite availability of funds. The press note was appeneded by NGRC-I CU president, K. C Angami, general secretary, L. Pukhato Shohe, joint secretary, L. Mhalie Zatsu and legal advisor, Kezhokhoto Savi.
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