MCD contractors set to go on strike from today over non-payment of dues

Aggrieved over non-payment of their dues since 2013, over 5,600 contractors of all the three BJP-led Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCDs) on Tuesday announced to stage demonstration at respective headquarters of civic agencies. According to officials, payments of over Rs 2,000 cr are due to these contractors and they have stopped participating in the bidding of MCDs. “Our dues have not been paid for the past 36 months. Nearly Rs 2,000 crore is due to the contractors by the MCDs so we have decided to agitate from Wednesday,” Delhi Municipal Contractors Association president Dharmendra Bhati said. According to the association, about thousands of Municipal contractors were engaged in the strike which will start from the Civic Centre early Wednesday morning. The association members claimed that MCDs are not cash-strapped and recently got hundreds of crore from various sources but yet were not ready to pay the due.

“The agencies have got grants from the Delhi government recently but are unwilling to pay our dues. Apart from this, fixed deposits of over Rs 2,500 crore is lying unused with the Corporations but no effort is being made to pay the outstanding amounts,” said Ajay Kapur, vice-president of the association. He claimed that a total of Rs 1,277 of non-plan head and Rs 600 crore of plan head are due over North and East MCDs since mid-2013. North MCD alone has to pay Rs 1,200 of both plan and non-plan head while EDMC has to pay over Rs 600 crore in the same overheads.

SDMC, however, has released approximately Rs 750 crore in January but it has to pay hundreds of crores to the contractors. “The agencies are failing to address our concerns following which we have decided to go strike. The contractors will not lift construction waste from the roads during the strike. This might cause further worry to the MCDs which had been maintaining that demolition waste lying on roads was one of the major causes of waterlogging during this monsoon season.