Contractors protest govt order merging civil and electrical work

The government order on merging civil and electrical contracts for building works was passed a year ago and the workers have filed complaints with higher officials regarding this issue. “But they have started to take steps to implement the order. The workers staged a protest for immediate action,” said a protestor.

“We have separate contract workers for both electrical and civil works. This has been the norm for several years. Due to the new government order, trained electrical contractors who studied for years to be in this profession will be unemployed. 

For availing the contract, a person should be qualified electrical personnel and the contractors should write exams and appear before Chief Electrical Inspector to Government (CIEG) for the license,” said M Karunamoorthy, head of the TNPWECD union.  

According to government order, the State had accorded sanction to invite tenders under package system by following tender procedures for execution of building works by the building organisation of PWD. “The major contractors are civilians who take the tenders together and they give sub-contract to electrical workers. 

We want that to be broken and demand for separate civil and electrical workers. Now, civil workers are taking their entire contract, but they need not have any work experience on electrical work. But for electric workers, they ask work experience on civil,” said another member. Following the protest, a senior PWD official has promised to discuss with the government and separate the departments soon.