Contractors for increasing costs of development projects

Bangladesh Association of Construction Industries (BACI), an association of contractors, has urged the government to increase spending on ongoing development projects to end the standstill due to uncontrolled market prices of construction materials.

At a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters' Unity on Wednesday, the association leaders said various development projects of the government have come to a standstill due to skyrocketing prices of construction materials. To end the stalemate, the government should increase the costs of ongoing projects by adjusting to the current market prices of construction materials.

If the prices of construction materials and equipment are not brought to a tolerable level, the construction works of all the projects will come to a standstill and implementation of those will become impossible, they added.

"The construction works of the country's roads, highways, bridges, culverts, high-rise buildings, etc are almost stalled at present. Contractors are becoming bankrupt for non-payment of bank loans. With this, financial institutions are also suffering financially," said Sheikh Md Rafiqul Islam, former president of the association, in a written statement.

In the statement, the association put forward six-point demands to resolve the standstill situation in the ongoing projects.

The demands include-- update the rate schedule of all government departments and offices; allocating necessary funds under price contingency in the estimate of each construction work and temporary import duty waivers on raw materials for import-dependent construction tools.

The association also demanded formulation and execution of specific recommendations and policies by setting up a price adjustment cell to coordinate among various development organisations to offset the financial losses of the contracted construction companies.

The contribution of the construction industry to Gross domestic product (GDP) is currently more than 12-14%. More than one crore people are involved in this industry directly and indirectly, he added.

BACI President Engineer Shafiqul Haque Talukdar, former President Mir Nasir, Advisor Shafiqul Alam Bhuiyan and Vice President Engineer Bimal Chandra Roy were also present.