A capacity building workshop was held at the Conference Hall in Nirman Bhawan, HPPWD, Shimla under the chairmanship of Additional Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister-cum-Chairman of Quality Control Cell of CM office Sanjay Kundu. The agenda of the workshop was Capacity Building of Contractors and to discuss various issues concerning contracts.In this workshop, ENC, all Chief Engineers and SEs of HPPWD were present alongwith contractors of Class-A and B working in various parts of Himachal Pradesh.There was open discussion on the issues of the contractors such as Finance, Machinery, Labour, Engineering Support, Bill payments, Mining issues regarding availability of sand and aggregate, incentives for timely completion of work and quality control.The contractors raised the issue of Goods and Services Tax (GST), royalty charges being deducted by the department on crusher bills, shortage of bitumen, cement and timely payment of bills by PWD on priority basis.
After detailed deliberations on these issues, the department assured to address them by taking up all the issues with the appropriate authorities.Chairperson emphasized on the quality work and directed the contractors to deploy the site engineers on their works and pass on the legitimate benefits to their labour as per contractual conditions. He also proposed to coordinate with the Excise and Taxation Department to conduct a workshop of GST for Engineers, Contractors and Accounts Officers to clarify all issues regarding GST. The Engineer-in-Chief, HPPWD also offered to provide training to the Engieers and Skilled Workers of the Contractors at Zonal level and various ITIs through Technical Education Department. He also suggested to develop a software by which the works in hand of contractors and their progress can be monitored online.On behalf of contractors Dinesh Kumar Sharma thanked Chairman of Quality Control Cell of CM office Sanjay Kundu for providing them a forum for raising their concerns with the department and assured full cooperation from their side in executing the various works timely.