Termination of workers triggers protest, tunnel construction stopped

RAMBAN, Oct 20: The construction work of twin parallel 2200 meter tunnels on Jammu-Srinagar, National Highway at Maroog here has been stopped for about a month as Kuberaa Project Ltd (KPL), the company engaged in the work terminated all its employees without a prior notice on the pretext of indiscipline.All the terminated employees of KPL have been protesting at the construction site for the last one month.The termination has hit more than 150 employees including senior managers, labourers and other staffers besides contractors and vendors.According to the terminated Project Manager, Prabhat Gupta the company began construction on south portal of twin tunnel in October 2023 after the work was sub-let to them by TATA Construction Company which was awarded by the National Highway Authority of India.He alleged that due to financial mismanagement and crisis, KPL sent an e-mail message to all its employees regarding termination without any prior notice and claimed misbehaviour with superior officers and poor performance as the reason.He further said that another e-mail message on October 15 was sent to the employees asking them to accept conditions of KPL to get one month notice.Senior Construction Manager, Sudhir Kumar alleged that KPL didn’t use Rs. 44 cr they got from TATA Co. properly and spent only Rs.18 cr which started problems.He alleged that although the Project Director, Sanjay Kumar had made an agreement with the workers that they will be given whole six month final instalment but they were not given the same despite getting the amount from TATA Co.Project Director NHAI, Ramban was not available for comments.