Kathmandu, October 11:

The activities of the Division Road Office (DRO) under the Department of Roads (DoR) have been affected after the Federation of Contractors’ Association of Nepal (FCAN) boycotted a tender notice it had published a month ago. Today was the last day for filing the tenders. However, no application was filed at the Division Road Office. The DRO had invited a tender of Rs 9 crore for the construction and maintenance of roads in the Kathmandu valley. “We will now have to publish another tender notice and that will will take another one month,” said Sunil Poudyal, an engineer at the DRO at Minbhawan.

The contractors are on strike demanding fulfilment of their 14-point charter of demands.

The demands include scrapping of the Public Procurement Bill tabled in the House of Representatives. “The delay in the tender process would affect the road construction because work cannot be completed within the expected time,” Poudyal, the DRO engineer, said.

The Division Road Office is presently engaged in completing the last years’ remaining work, Poudyal further said. A member of the Main Struggle Committee of the Federation of Contractors’ Association of Nepal, Gelje Lama, said the DRO’s works cannot be completed during the regular season and that its budget could freeze due to the delay.

Lama said the Federation of Contractors’ Association of Nepal has boycotted tender notices amounting to some Rs 6 billion.