Choose contractors well, says Speaker

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, March 11: There are many bridges and roads across the State the construction of which were abandoned halfway and the government is doing nothing to complete their construction. These incomplete bridges and roads have become an utter inconvenience to the public.

Expressing serious concern over the issue, a section of MLAs in the House on Wednesday said that action must be taken by the State government against the contractors, who after taking work orders, fail to complete their tasks. Reacting to the issue, even Assembly Speaker Prab Kumar Gogoi told the government to prepare strict guidelines to tackle the problem so that common people don’t suffer.

Gogoi said, “Many contractors mage to get work orders from the department concerned by quoting low rates but later give up the construction work. Before selecting contractors, the department concerned must take previous work records of a contractor into consideration and then take the decision to issue work order to that particular contractor.”

During the question hour in the Assembly, BJP MLA Manoranjan Das raised this issue which was later taken up by other MLAs.

Some of the MLAs informed the House that there are many such bridges and roads in their constituencies the construction of which has not been completed in the last 5 to 10 years.

BJP MLA Prashanta Phukan and AGP MLA Keshav Mahanta also expressed their unhappiness over the quality of construction of the East-West Corridor Project in the State. “The State government must report to the Central government time to time on the progress of construction of the East-West Corridor Project,” they added.

On behalf of PWD Minister Ajanta Neog, Agriculture Minister Rockybul Hussain said, “Inefficient contractors were blacklisted by the government earlier and will continue to do so,” adding, “The progress of East-West Corridor’s construction has already been taken up with the Central government by us.”

He further said, “Due to issues such as land acquisition, technical problems and flood, construction works of some bridges and roads in some parts of the State were hampered to an extent.”