Contractors under ‘construction holiday’ citing excessive rise in price of construction materials

KATHMANDU: The Federation of Contractors’ Associations of Nepal (FCAN) has announced a ‘construction holiday’ reasoning the lack of an environment conducive for construction due to price increment in construction materials.

Excessive price increment in construction materials, some errors in the 11th amendment to the Public Procurement Regulation and provisions in the Insurance Directives, 2078 BS among others have made the matter worse, it said. As a result, approximately 3,500 projects have been halted in protest.

“We have announced a construction holiday as the construction business has been at risk of collapsing,” said the FCAN President Rabi Singh, adding that as a result, over 17,000 contractors have been on the brink of quitting their business. Construction of around 1500 projects has continued however, he said. In protest, sit-ins at the district administration office of all 77 districts and the office of the Chief Minister of all seven provinces will be launched from April 26, he said.

The FCAN in a statement has urged the government to resolve the problems facing the construction business as they will have negative impacts on the country’s whole economy. They had to resort to the protest after their repeated call to the government to address their problem went unheard, according to the statement.

As part of their protest, they launched a sit-in in front of the office of the public procurement monitoring office and the Beema Samiti on past Thursday and Friday.

They have demanded price adjustment in construction materials, amendment of inconsistent points in the 11th amendment to the Public Procurement Regulation, 2078 and a scrap of the Insurance Directive, 2078.

The Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal has shown its solidarity with the demand of scraping the Insurance Directive, 2078.