Bhubaneswar: The All Odisha Contractors’ Association (AOCA) Thursday complained Leader of Opposition (LoP) Naveen Patnaik and seven others at Mancheswar police station by leveling allegations of ‘cheating’ and ‘criminal conspiracy’ against them. The six BJD leaders whose names have been mentioned in the FIR are Niranjan Pujari, Prafulla Kumar Mallik, Pratap Jena, Sudam Marndi, Susanta Singh and Raghunandan Das. They have also named the principal secretary of Works department Vir Vikram Yadav in the FIR.
The association alleged that although the then Naveen Patnaik government had committed to fulfil their 10-point charter of demands within a month during a demonstration they staged November 11, 2019, precious little was done. The association had urged the ruling BJD to hand over public tenders to local construction companies. Besides, it had also requested the government to hike the wages of contractors and labourers. Later, Naveen formed a committee and assured them of fulfilling their demands based on which the association called off the stir November 27, 2019. However, nothing was done, said the outfit. “Odisha has 55,000 registered contractors while 15,000 remain unregistered owing to loopholes in government procedures,” AOCA president Pravat Dash said, adding that the BJD government prioritised non-Odia contractors and awarded them multi-crore projects.
DEBADURLLAV HARICHANDAN, OP