Builders body wants Maharashtra govt to ease SOP

The Builders Association of India has urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to ease the Standard Operating Procedures issued for the construction industry.

The association has requested that offices of architects, licensed surveyors, engineers, structural engineers, licensed plumbers and other consultants be allowed to operation and construction workers permitted to take Rapid Antigen Test instead of RT-PCR tests.

In a letter to Thackeray, Mohinder Rijhwani, Chairman of Mumbai Centre of Builders Association of India has requested the Maharashtra government to allow the sales offices of the builders to remain open on GudiPadwa, Akshaya Tritiya next week.

The Association has stated that many buyers book flats on these auspicious festivals and if the sales offices are not allowed to work, major business would be lost.

“The state government in its notification issued on Sunday for the lockdown from April 5, has made RT-PCR or vaccination mandatory for the workers engaged in the construction sites. However the test is time consuming as the reports are received only after 3-4 days. Instead, Rapid Antigen Test is an ideal alternative with results available within 30 minutes, he said.

Since the vaccination is allowed only to people above 45 years and most of the construction workers are younger, compliance of the vaccination mentioned in the SOP by the Maharashtra government would be difficult,” the letter stated.