PALAKKAD: The work on the 45-kilometer Palakkad-Shoranur Road will be stopped from December 6 as its contracting company, the Road Builder (M) Sdn.Bhd of Malaysia, had served the 14-day mandatory notice for termination of work to the Government on November 22.

The company, which undertook the World Bank-aided Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP) work on the 33-kilometer Thrissur-Kuttipuram Road has already suspended that work.

The total contract amount for these two roads of 78.3 km is Rs.142 crore and 60 per cent of the work costing over Rs.78 crore has been completed.

Highly placed sources in the company said they had decided to wind up their operations in Kerala due to the difficulty in continuing the contract.

Pending payment

But the company will claim its pending payment of Rs.21 crore from the Government invoking the provisions of arbitration clause of the contract agreement or by going for litigation.

The company authorities here said they were forced to stop the work after completing 60 per cent of it due to the non-payment of dues and the refusal of the Government to extend the period of the completion of the contract to March 2007. The company sources said the Government had to pay Rs.21 crore that included belated payment interest of Rs.4 crore.

They said the delay in completing the work as per agreement by March 2006 was due to the failure in handing over the required land to them. Even after handing over the land, the encumbrances were not removed by the BSNL, KWA, KSEB etc.

Thus the delay in completing the work as per the contract was not due to any lapse on the part of the contracting company but by the Government agencies.

The engineer-in-charge (road construction) had recommended to the Government "a total extension of time of 303 days after 31 May 2006" (the completion date of the engineer's previous recommendation).

His recommendation said, "since land acquisition in some parts and encumbered land handed over to the contractor in other parts were simultaneous events, 303 days on account of delays in land acquisition may be granted."

The company claimed that "some of the sites were handed over to the contractor as late as April 2006 and hence there has been too little time to complete construction activities."

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