Strap: Govt mulls higher compensation, improved security to resume work
Security concern
* Sources say the bigger infrastructure developers refrain from bidding for projects in Naxal-affected areas due to the security risk, though they stand to earn bigger margins
* The Devendra Fadnavis government had earlier announced plans to extend state highways in Naxal-affected areas in order to allow for speedy movement of security forces
* Though bids were invited for 43 projects, no contractor was willing to take up work in around half of them, PWD officials say
Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, May 7
The work on a road project that was targeted by Naxals in which 15 security personnel were killed earlier this month has come to a halt.
Officials said more than a hundred workers employed with the contractor building the 36-km stretch between Purada and Yerkad in Gadchiroli district have run away following the May 1 attack.
Officials say the state government is mulling higher compensation and improved security for the contractor and workers so that work on the road project resumes at the earliest.
"The contractor has lost crores of rupees and his workers have run away after the incident," a state public works department official said.
Amar Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, a Chhattisgarh-based company, had bagged the contract to build the road through Naxal-infested areas last year. The contractor had bid Rs135 crore for constructing this section of the Purada-Yerkad road. "Around 12 km of the road has so far been constructed. Though there were Naxal threats over the past few weeks, there was no disruption till May 1," the official added.
The Maoists had first set on fire 25 vehicles and a hot asphalt mix plant that was being used to construct the road in the wee hours of May 1. Later in the day, they set off an IED, which claimed the lives of 15 personnel of the state reserve police force and the driver of the vehicle they were travelling in.
The police personnel were on their way to investigate the arson incident. It is still not clear why adequate security was not provided at the spot where the vehicles and equipment were clustered together, making them a sitting duck for the Maoists.
Local police officials who interrogated some of the workers said they were not seriously harmed by the Naxals, though some of them who tried to prevent the vehicles being set afire were roughed up. The workers mostly hail from the tribal areas of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, police said.
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2VUwGQo
via Today’s News Headlines
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