Sudurpaschim Province
Local units place faith back on consumer committees
Quality of work exhibited by contractors in the current fiscal year has been subpar.Ganesh Chaudahry
Local units in Kailali have granted more development projects to contractors than to consumer committees, locals complain.
Even though the Consumer Protection Act, 1988 dictates that any project valued up to Rs10 million is to be granted to consumer committees, most of the local units in Kailali have been doing otherwise.
In the first year of the election of local representatives, the municipal executive office decided that it would grant contracts of up to Rs10 million to consumer committees. But in the current fiscal year, the municipality changed its decision, this time reducing the bar to Rs 1 million.
Officials at the municipality say the decision was changed owing to the subpar quality of work done by consumer committees.
But again for the upcoming fiscal year, the municipality changed its decision—this time granting a project of up to Rs 2.5 million to consumer committees.
“At first we thought that private contractors would compete against themselves and do the same amount of work quicker and for a smaller budget,” said Ramlal Dagaura, chief of Tikapur Municipality-7. “But this was not the case. The contractors didn’t fare any better than the consumer committees. In fact, consumer committees fared better than the contractors in terms of road construction.”
Dirgha Thakulla, spokesperson for the municipality, said, “The work allotted to contractors has exceeded its deadline and the quality of their work is lacking,” Thakulla said. “As per our track record, consumer committees have done better work than the contractors.”