Ngaland Govt. Registered Class-1 Contractors’ Union(NGRC-I CU)’s 15 years of existence – brief history

Several senior members in the contractor’s fraternity felt the need of forming a proper union exclusively for Nagaland Government registered contractors and time to time several members meets since 2000. The concern has been spread to more members in the fraternity and hence the First Meeting was convened on 24th August, 2001 at Hotel Japfu, Kohima and in this meeting members present decided to collect Rs.500/- as membership fee and a Nomination Committee was constituted with Mr. Vilelie Khamo as convenor to find some amongst them to lead the proposed union. The Second Meeting was held on 12.09.2001 where the house resolved to call upon all the government registered contractors irrespective of class-1/11/111 or IV and even huge publicity was made through media and local newspapers calling all the government registered contractors irrespective of classes to attend the meeting on 25th Sept, 2001 at Hotel Japfu Kohima. At first the name of the Union was designed as Nagaland Govt.Registered Contractors’ Union but still then the house resolved to name the union as “Nagaland Govt. Registered Class-1 Contractors’ Union” as the meetings were only attended by the class-1 contractors and late Pfudilhu Mera became the first union President. The Motto of the Union – ‘Towards Progress’ was approved in the union meeting held on 23rd November, 2001. Shri. Kezhokhoto Savi, Advocate has accepted the offer of the Union to be their legal advisor/standing counsel and has also accepted to draft the constitution of the Union. Very soon the union became a legal person with Govt. Regd. No. H/RS-2002 dated 12.02.2002 having its office near Chief Engineer PWD. Office, Kohima, Nagaland. Shri. K.C. Angami has been unanimously selected to the union President in its Union General Meeting held on 04.03.2006 at Hotel Japfu Kohima and this was necessitated due to the sudden demised of its union PresidentPfudilhu Mera. K.C. Angami was the longest served President till the present Union President Shri. Seyiekuolie took over on 18th November, 2014. In its existence of 15 years the Union has produced good number of class-1 contractors in the state and so many important projects has successfully been executed in the state be roads, bridges, government building, private projects, etc. The Union has also constructed its own new office building on the way to Nagaland Civil Secretariat which is to be inaugurated soon.
The Union legal advisor Kezhokhoto Savi, advocate in its exclusive interview with some of the union advisors where he commented that the big difference of contract works of today and the past was corrupt and clean practices. In the past there was no practice of deduction upon the bill of contractors and there was no delay in measurement of work done and payment as well – honesty and integrity was the character amongst the contractors and technocracts/ politicians/bureaucrats in the practice of contracting for infrastructural development in the past but today i.e the present scenario is quiet different where the character of honesty & integrity were suppressed by deduction of good amount of percentages from contractors’ bill by way of commission, party fund, NPG’s etc besides government deduction such as departmental charges, quality control, etc. Today, manipulation plays the major role and the target to achieve good quality of work & workmanship has been ignored to a large extent and the best example is our road conditions in the state.
In an exclusive interview with one of the richest man in Nagaland during late 70’s is no other than the 87 years old Mr. Yashitsungba Ao hails from Sungaratsu village, Dist-Mokokchung a class-1 contractor and an industrialist as well and he is the senior most class-1 contractor amongst the members of NGRC-1 CU. Mr. Yashitsungba Ao(Y. Ao) lost his father when he was 2(two) years old and his mother got married again to another man. At a very young age Mr. Y. Ao look after the cows as his step father does business in selling cows bringing from Assam and Mr. Y. Ao could go to school only when he was already 8-9 years old. Later on he came to join Mokokchung Govt. High School and he met a tragedy when he was in class-VII as their hostel building caught fire and the little belongings he has got burnt and that was the time he could not able to continue to go to school as he does not even have a spare half pant. The only alternative was to return to his native village but at that point of time an elder sister who was a teacher in a school at Mokokchung offer him to stay at her house not for study but he can stay back and go for daily wage earner. Mr. Y. Ao started his career in regularly look for daily wage and earns 50 paise for a full day work. One Bengali officer who got married to a naga lady was much willing to help Y. Ao and he could find a manual contract work of stone metal of carpeting road for a sum of Rs.2/- where he happily could complete the work within 3 days. He was strong and very hard working and he was given more works of similar nature the contract work amounting to Rs.4/- and Rs.5/- in the road carpeting works on Mokokchung Govt. High School circular road. In the fresh road cutting from Mokokchung to Kohima via Wokha Mr. Y. Ao was also given a contract work for a sum of Rs.10,000/- and then a stretch of 1 km, 2 kms and to the extent of 5 kms. Mr. Y. Ao was camping in the jungle with some friends for fresh cutting here and there till Doyang bridge. Later on he got into ration supply of both army and NAP Battalion and then he has come to Dimapur in the expansion of his career. He could be one of the first industrialists amongst the Nagas opened rerolding mill, veneer mill, saw mill in Dimapur. Again he got into the business of loading in Jalukie area and at that time he was having more than 100 Shaktiman trucks for transporting wooden load and 8 big elephants in pulling bigger load/trees in thick jungle. During the late 1970’s he could be the richest man in Nagaland. Among the prominent contract works was Industrial village and he has contributed so much in health sector by investing so much of his wealth and resources in bringing out a private hospital in Dimapur called ‘Zion’ and Eden Medical Centre which is one of the first private multispecialty hospital in the North East equipped with a state of the art
Linear Accelerator(Elekta) for cancer treatment.
Sd/-
(Kezhokhoto Savi), Legal Adviser/Standing Counsel, NGRC-1 CU