April 18: After their demands were not met, the Federation of Contractors’ Association Nepal (FCAN) announced protest programme to get their voices heard. On Sunday, the federation revealed that it will be holding sit-ins at government offices starting from April 21. The protests will be held at the Public Procurement Monitoring Office and the Insurance Board.

A team led by the president of the federation, Ravi Singh handed over a memorandum to the Public Procurement Monitoring Office and the Insurance Board on Sunday in this regard.

The federation handed over the memorandum to Madhusudan Burlakoti, secretary of the Public Procurement Monitoring Office, urging them to address their demands. Stating that no attention was paid to the demands of FCAN so far, President Singh said that they would hold a sit-in if a resolution is not reached within April 21.

The FCAN has been demanding that the government address the issue of price hike of construction materials, the deadline of contracts should be extended, and some provisions in the Public Procurement (Eleventh Amendment) Rules-2078 BS, Insurance Directive-2078 BS should be amended / annulled. The federation said that despite making those requests repeatedly, the issues were not addressed at all.

Roshan Dahal, general secretary of the federation said that even though the federation gave enough time to resolve the problems of the construction industry, it was not addressed. Similarly, in a memorandum submitted to the Insurance Board by the federation, it has demanded scrapping of the Insurance Directive-2078 issued by the board. The federation has been saying that the alternative of scrapping the directive could be addressed through amendment.

According to the federation, the decision to increase the premium rate by the insurance companies four to five times is unreasonable. Similarly, the federation said that the provision of not settling 70 to 80 percent of the claims by the insurance companies in the past to the insurers is also not acceptable.