Delay in payment halts work of six bridges in Indore

Construction work of six important bridges in Indore has come to a near halt as none of the contractors have been paid for the past four months by the public works department.

Construction work of six important bridges in Indore has come to a near halt as none of the contractors have been paid for the past four months by the public works department.

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The bridges are coming up at Musakheri, Banganga, Hatod, Rajendra Nagar, Mhow-Simrol and Rau-Pithampur. The last two bridges are in the constituency of state urban administration and environment minister Kailash Vijayvargiya.

One of the sub-contractors, who did not want to be identified, said they did not have an option but to go slow on their work as they were running low on funds.

"Apart from top contractors who have very deep pockets, all of us depend on payments to continue our work. Some of us are so cash strapped that we could not pay the workers for the Ganesh festival," one of the sub-contractors said.

The department officials acknowledged that no payment had been made to the contractors. Minister for public works department Sartaj Singh could not be contacted and a text message to him did not elicit a reply.