Rly contractors on stir for arrears payment

According to the contractors, they undertake the projects like tunnels, renovation works and other basic amenities to the passengers and there are over 5,000 such railway contractors across the country and in Tamil Nadu there are as many as 300 contractors involved in developmental projects in association with the Railways.  

“For the past six months, the Railways Department failed to release the fund to the contractors for some unknown reason. This totals a whopping Rs 1,200 crore and so the contractors are left in the lurch and are in a dilemma whether to continue to take up works but the Southern Railways continue to put pressure on us to take up works and complete them,” one of the agitatingmembers said.

They said, only when the Railways releases the pending fund, they would continue to take up works. Thus, in order to insist on the Railways to release their pending fund, more than 100 contractors staged a protest in front of the Junction Railways.

The agitating contractors claimed that one of such contractors Venkat Reddy committed suicide after the Railways released the pending fund, she said.