Contractors stage protest over unpaid bills in Kalaburagi

Members of the Kalaburagi Mahanagara Palike Guttigedarara Abhivriddhipara Kalyana Sangha staged a day-long protest in front of the Kalaburagi City Corporation office on Monday demanding payment of pending bills for works executed under the 15th Finance Commission grants for 2024-25 and 2025-26.

Sangha president M.K. Patil has, in a memorandum addressed to the City Corporation Commissioner, said that they have completed a number of works awarded through tenders under the second instalment of the 2024-25 grant and the first instalment of the 2025-26 grant.

However, despite having completed the works, their bills have remained unpaid for almost a year, he said.

They have noted that they are small-scale contractors who have borrowed money to procure construction material, including jelly, sand and cement, besides gathering labour costs, in the expectation that their bills will be cleared shortly after the completion of the works.

“While we were earlier able to repay such borrowings within a month after receiving payment for the works, the prolonged delay in clearing bills has left us under severe financial stress,” said sangha vice-president Dashrath Chougle.

The contractors remarked that repeated representations to the corporation authorities and the Directorate of Municipal Administration have not yielded any concrete action. According to They, lenders have been pressuring them for repayment, aggravating their financial difficulties.

The sangha members have called on the corporation to clear the pending bills at the earliest. If funds under the 15th Finance Commission grants are not presently available, the corporation should explore other permissible sources of funds and make the payments, they stated.

The agitating contractors have also cautioned of intensifying their agitation and laying a siege to the corporation office building if the pending bills are not cleared within a week.