Telangana: Contractors threaten to stall works if govt fails to pay by February 5

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has frozen all payments, except salaries of staff and pensions, to adjust Rs 5,000 crore that will be given as farmers’ sop.

“The government is adopting a strange policy. It had asked the finance department to clear all the bills for payment and send to the treasury,” sources said.

“Simultaneously, it gave instructions to the treasury department not to release payment,” the sources added.

With this, contractors, managements of educational institutions and hospitals who had approached the Treasury for arrears of various projects, fee reimbursement, scholarships, Aarogyasri etc. returned empty-handed.

This has led to confrontation between the staff and contractors who are questioning on their bills being stopped while the finance department had cleared them.

The treasury department expressed its helplessness in this issue citing restrictions from higher-ups. Contractors have threatened to stall all works if the government fails to clear their bills by February 5.

The government wants to credit over Rs 5,000 crore in banks by April-end so that the first installment of Rs 4,000 per acre for over 72 lakh farmers can be disbursed in May at one go.

Arranging this huge amount is a herculean task given the financial constraints faced by the government with a slew of massive development and welfare schemes being taken up at a cost of over Rs 42,000 crore per year.

The government struggled to clear the Rs 17,500 crore crop loan waiver arrears for 33 lakh farmers.

It took four years to clear the arrears in four installments of Rs 4,250 crore. In this backdrop, arranging Rs 5,000 crore in May for kharif.

The state government is keen to successfully pay Rs 10,000 crore to farmers this year since 2018 is the election year and it wants to achieve this goal even by delaying payment to others.