Contractor send men for routine work, Betwa residents hold them captive

LUCKNOW: Over 200 irate residents of Betwa Apartment, built in the posh Riverview project of LDA in Gomtinagar Extension, held captive officials of the contractor firm for about seven hours for not listening to their grievances. They were complaining of leaking walls, unfitted pipelines, shoddy parking space and unkempt corridors in the building despite it being a new construction.They said they have been complaining to LDA and the private construction firm for past year and a half but they’ve both ignored them; passing the buck to each other.
As last resort, residents gheraoed four employees of the firm on Saturday afternoon when they came for routine work. Sanjay Srivastava, a resident, said, “We asked them to give it to us in writing that they will repair and maintain all sub-standard construction but they refused to do so, claiming that the project has been handed over to LDA and now it’s their responsibility. They only agreed to speak to their seniors to resolve our problems once we held them captive.”
Locals claimed that over the past year, the contractor firm had been dilly-dallying over their complaints but agreed to meet LDA officials only when they held its employees captive. Gomtinagar Police station SO Shyam Babu Shukla said, “I had to intervene to get the employees released. I have assured people that the private firm will talk to LDA to resolve their complaints on Monday, else people can come to me with written complaint and we will lodge FIR over poor quality construction.”
The problems include leaking washrooms, unmaintained corridors, wrong slopes in balconies leading to water inflow inside flats during heavy rains, peeling paint cover etc.