ISLAMABAD: Dozens of civil work contractors of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) have demanded the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) to pay their over Rs30 billion outstanding dues pending since 2010 and save them from hunger and complete shutdown.

In a statement here on Wednesday, the AJK contractors being presented by the chief executive of BKZ Construction Company (Pvt) Limited, who have carried out or still carrying out different construction projects in October 8, 2005 earthquake’s most devastated districts including Muzaffarabad, Hattian, Neelum, Bagh, Haveli, Poonch and Sadnhoti, said they have been made rolling stone by ERAA by not paying their outstanding dues on different pretexts.

They said due to pathetic attitude of ERRA, they and their families were suffering severe financial constraints as they had spent huge money on these projects from their own pockets and even by borrowing from their friends. They said as per settled agreements, ERRA was not releasing their outstanding payments on different pretexts.

They said the outstanding payments of many projects, involving education and health, completed and handed over to ERRA in 2010, were not being released, which had forced the contractors to shut down their companies. They said they had knocked almost all the available doors to get justice from ERRA’s highhandedness, but there was no one who could help and pull them out of this crisis.

They said some contractors, whose outstanding dues were in millions and millions till 2020, were only paid 10 percent, which was a joke with them. They said several ongoing projects have been declared 95 percent completed by the ERRA and remaining work has been closed. They feared that their over Rs30- billion outstanding dues could sink as ERRA had reportedly been merged in National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and only notification of merger had to be issued.