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Railway contractors in Pune go on one-day, stop work protest
The dues of the contractors in Pune have gone up to Rs 30 crore and if the dues are not paid till March 10 then contractors have threatened to go on an indefinite stop work protest
Railway contractors’ association Indian Railway Infrastructure Providers Association (IRIPA) observed a nationwide one-day strike on Friday claiming that bills amounting to nearly ₹25,000 crore are yet to be cleared by the national transporter.
Around 40 railway contractors from Pune staged a protest at the Pune divisional railway manager (DRM) office and gave a memorandum to the DRM Pune. The dues of the contractors in Pune have gone up to Rs 30 crore and if the dues are not paid till March 10 then contractors have threatened to go on an indefinite stop work protest.
All the contract works across Pune railway division were stopped by the association on Friday. There are around 40 members of the association under Pune railway division.
“We have a national level railway contactors association, who has called for a nationwide stop work protest on Friday in regards to the issue of not getting payments from the railway administration. Accordingly, we gave a letter of memorandum to the Pune DRM today and demanded to release our dues of around Rs 30 crore by March 10. If the payment is not given then we will go on an indefinite stop work strike. All civil works related to railway engineering department we have stopped today, including station building, repair works, new platform work and track work.” said Pune association president Rahul Chaudhary.
Talking about the issue, Pune railway divisional manager Renu Sharma said, “We are working on clearing the pending dues of the contractors and in next week I personally will be taking a meeting with them. We don’t want any miscommunication between us and want to work together to give better service to our passengers.”
