Protect us from threats, extortion: contractors’ SOS to Maharashtra’s Shinde Govt

“These groups cannot be controlled by government officials. Increased instances of threatening with physical violence; beating up the contractor if they registered an opposition and dictating their own orders are growing across the state.

These groups are working in an identical manner all over, where they file written complaints against the contractor and later demand money,” the letter dated February 3 said.

It said that the contractors were suffering silently because of the work they have taken and are bound to complete it.

“The ruling MLAs, MPs and other elected representatives have managed to get sanction for huge amounts of developmental works in the state. While executing it, political groups who are in the Opposition are ensuring that the works are stopped. To do this, these groups are ganging up against the contractors and the labourers, and abusing as well as beating them to stop the work,” it said.

When asked about the letter, the Chief Minister’s Office told The Indian Express that it will look into the matter after going into the complaint and taking feedback from the field.

Milind Bhosle, president of both MSCA and SEA, said the government has issued developmental works in various departments and political rivalry is causing major damage as well as delays to the execution of these projects.

“According to our estimate, the state government has issued orders for works up to Rs one lakh crore in the state. Our contractors are facing trouble on ground during site visits where political opponents of the local ruling side are forcefully stopping the work, using physical violence. The government officials are simply turning blind eye to such instances and our members are scared of filing complaints fearing more threats,” he told The Indian Express, adding that ultimately contractors are fined for delay in execution of projects without realising the ground reality.

Bhosle said the last option left with the contractors is to stop work altogether.

In their letter, the two associations warned that contractors will not execute any work from February-end if no solution is found. “The state administration and ministers must look into this issue and should take steps to pass a stringent law which will prevent violence against contractors,” it said.

According to estimates, the state’s Public Works Department (PWD) has works of around Rs 45,000 crore going on, which include construction of roads, buildings and government establishments. In addition, works of around Rs 11,000 crore have been cleared through zilla parishads, projects worth Rs 3,500 crore from Water Conservation Department, Rs 2,500 crore from Irrigation and Rs 2,000 crore from Tourism department are being executed.

The state has witnessed unprecedented political churn over the past 20 months. The MVA lost power in June 2022 after the Eknath Shinde-led faction split the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray and joined hands with the BJP to form a new government. In July 2023, Ajit Pawar, too, broke away from Sharad Pawar’s NCP along with a group of MLAs and joined the Sena-BJP government.

While there is a three-party government in the state, there is also an opposition of three parties — Congress, Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar). Even within the three ruling allies, there have been instances of one upmanship in a particular area. On Friday night, BJP MLA from Kalyan (E) Ganpat Gaikwad shot at Mahesh Gaikwad, a local leader of Shinde-led Shiv Sena, in Ulhasnagar following a land dispute. While Mahesh’s condition remains critical, the MLA along with two of his associates have been arrested and remanded in police custody till February 14 by a local court.