Contractor waiting for Rs 1.3 crore from GHMC dies

HYDERABAD: Distressed and dismayed over the inordinate delay in the payment of pending dues of Rs 1.3 crore by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), a contractor working with the GHMC reportedly died of a heart attack on Monday.

The deceased Muralidhar Reddy, a resident of Hastinapuram, Shadnagar, had been trying to get his payments cleared for the past six months. Meanwhile, the GHMC Contractor’s Association has decided to stall all the engineering works from July 10 with a slogan “No payment, No work’’ while demanding the civic body to clear all the pending dues of `600 crore.

Muralidhar was working as a small-time civil contractor with the GHMC for the last five years, and for the last few months he was regularly visiting the GHMC offices to get the pending dues cleared, R Hanumanth Sagar, General Secretary of the GHMC Contractor’s Association, told Express. He was under stress as he had taken loans from people to carry out the works, and was being pestered by them to clear the debts, which led to his heart attack, he added.