By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: A day after reports of Hindustan Prefab Limited’s (HPL) withdrawal from the JNNURM Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme at Nongmynsong due to alleged harassment of its labourers came to fore, several NGOs from the area termed the allegation as ‘baseless and misleading’.
Sources on Monday had alleged that HPL, the implementing agency for the Centrally-sponsored JNNURM BSUP scheme at Nongmynsong, abandoned the project for want of manpower as constant harassment and threats from NGOs on pretext of checking documents had led to the labour problem.
In its reaction on Tuesday, the KSU Nongmynsong unit issued a release stating that the NGO had never harassed or threatened the labourers working at the project site.
“We have only insisted that the labourers from outside the State should possess valid documents including work permit. The labourers who do not possess such documents are being handed over to police,” KSU Nongmynsong unit president Donbor Wahlang said.
Going a step further, the KSU leader alleged that it was the labourers who harassed and even assaulted several youths of the locality.
The KSU leader also informed that HPL has sublet the project to one TK Engineering.
Nongmynsong Youth Development Organisation (NYDO) president Kordor Nongrum said that the NGOs are being made a scapegoat for delay in completion of the project. “As concerned NGOs we have only insisted that Section 12 of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1971 should be strictly adhered to and labourers from outside the State should possess work permit,” Nongrum said.
“The project would not have shaped up in this manner if the NGOs would have been against it,” he said.
Earlier, it was reported that continuous interference by NGOs had brought the project to a halt.
