Job Guarantee Dues: Rs.145 Crore to Be Credited into Workers’ Accounts on August 23
Officials told the CM that bills worth Rs.179.38 crore pertaining to 5.54 lakh works were registered as ongoing works.
Vijayawada: Efforts of the state government to ensure payment of NREGA bills for works executed during 2014-19 have started yielding results. On Wednesday, chief minister Chandrababu Naidu reviewed the process at the secretariat.
Officials told the CM that bills worth Rs.179.38 crore pertaining to 5.54 lakh works were registered as ongoing works. Of this, the Panchayati Raj department has completed the exercise and uploaded Rs.145 crore worth of bills. The finance department has released these funds to NIC.
This amount would be credited into the accounts of small contractors and villagers who executed the works, on August 23.
The previous government had withheld several payments for NREGA works carried out under the 2014-19 Telugu Desam government, and even closed the works without releasing bills. After assuming office in 2024, the present government took up this matter on a priority basis. Naidu personally held discussions with central leaders to remove obstacles to the release of the job –guarantee funds. As a result, 3,54,177 works that were closed by the YSRC regime have now been restored to the list.
With this concession from the Centre, it has become possible to pay bills to those who executed these works in the past.
The officials said payments for the remaining bills are pending due to technical reasons, including a lack of proper estimations, the absence of expenditure records, or the merging of certain rural areas into urban regions. They told the CM that the YSRC government had falsely reported that certain bills were settled, without actually releasing funds. This created technical hurdles in processing the payments. Naidu directed officials to resolve these issues as well.
After coming to power, the coalition government has taken up phased payments of a total of Rs.329 crore NREGA bills that were stopped by the YSRC government. With the Rs.145 crore to be released on August 23, the total amount disbursed so far has reached Rs.250 crore. This brings relief to villagers and small contractors who had been waiting for their payments after executing minor works.
Thousands are set to gain financial respite through these clearances, officials said.
