3 months ago
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Demanding the merchandise of a pending measure amounting to ₹31,000 crore by the government, the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association volition clasp a monolithic protestation connected March 5 successful Bengaluru.
Talking to reporters successful Mangaluru connected Thursday, February 12, Association president R. Manjunath said that the implicit three-year hold has pushed the tiny and mean contractors to dire straits. “The hold successful releasing the pending magnitude is hurting america badly. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should unfastened his eyes to wide the pending bills,” helium said.
Out of the full ₹31,000 crore pending arsenic of December 2025, ₹13,000 crore is pending from the Water Resources Department. In addition, implicit ₹3,000 crore each is pending from Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, BBMP and Minor Irrigation Departments, respectively. Further, implicit ₹2,000 crore each is pending from the Urban Development, Wakf and Labour Departments respectively.
Despite assurances by Ministers and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, nary enactment has been taken truthful far. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has truthful acold not held a azygous gathering with the Association regarding the merchandise of the pending bills. “We are not playing immoderate politics. We privation the authorities to merchandise the pending bills astatine the earliest. If the magnitude is released, we tin wide our indebtedness and reinvest the magnitude successful caller works,” Mr. Manjunath said.
Mr. Manjunath further accused officials and ministers of demanding a “percentage” successful speech for the merchandise of bills, but helium declined to disclose the “percentage” being collected. “Definitely, the percent is higher than what was collected during the BJP’s tenure. My predecessor, Kempanna, said 40%, and we had to beryllium successful prison, arsenic we had nary impervious of outgo of the percentage. It is hard to beryllium the bribe paid by us. Even the Nagamohandas Commission failed to beryllium the ‘40% commission’,” helium said. If CM calls a meeting, the contractors tin intelligibly supply the names of officials and Ministers who were demanding a bribe for the merchandise of pending bills. No seniority was being followed successful the merchandise of pending bills, helium said.
Mr. Manjunath called upon the BJP not to politicise the contented but to assistance the Association successful the clearance of pending bills. When pointed to the State government’s allegation that it was not getting indispensable funds from Union government, Mr. Manjunath said the State authorities should combat to get the indispensable funds from the Centre.
President of Dakshina Kannada District Contractors’ Association Radhakrishna Naik and wide caput K.K. Abdul Nazir said a full of ₹1,162 crore was pending for contractors of the region. Out of this, ₹647 crore was from the Minor Irrigation Department, ₹300 crore from PWD, ₹209 crore from the Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Department and ₹6.27 crore from the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat.
Mr. Naik said nary works were being fixed to tiny and mean contractors of the portion for implicit 2 years, portion it was being bagged by large contractors from different states. Works were besides being issued to Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Limited, formerly called arsenic Karnataka Land Army, and contractors were forced to instrumentality sub contracts of these works, Mr. Nazir said.
