PESHAWAR, June 5: The NWFP Government Contractors Association on Thursday termed the rise in prices of cement, steel, and bricks illegal, asking the federal finance minister to take action in this regard.

This was stated by the chairman of the association while speaking at a press conference here.

Factory owners, he said had raised the price of cement from Rs 160 per bag to Rs 225 per bag on April 15. Three days later, these prices were further enhanced from Rs 225 to Rs 240.

The raise, he said, had increased the cement manufacturers’ profit by a large margin.

Similarly, steel manufacturers had increased ex-factory prices from Rs17,500 per tonne to Rs25,000 during the same period, earning a daily profit of Rs3 million over and above their regular profit.

The price of bricks, he said, had been increased from Rs1,300 per 1,000 bricks to Rs1,900 while the old rates of furnace were jacked up by 95 per cent.

Criticizing the increase in the price of construction material, they said that the contractors would suffer excessive losses if the prices were not brought down to April 16 levels. Terming the cement manufacturers offer of reducing their prices by Rs30 per bag fraud, he said that the increase was unjustified.