On the occasion of Dassara, the coalition government led by Chandrababu Naidu has decided to pay the long- standing pending dues to the small contractors, who are one of the victims of YSRCP chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s regime. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has directed the finance ministry to clear all the dues, related to 2019 to 2024, should be paid by Dassara.
The families of the contractors are expressing joy with this. The Finance Department has decided to pay bills upto worth Rs. 5 lakh. It has decided to pay all the pending bills for the work done during the YSRCP regime between 2019-24, including the work done during the previous TDP government of 2014-19. With this, the contractors are going to get a benefit of about Rs. 400 crores.
In the past, during the YSRCP government, bills were not paid for the work done during the previous TDP government. Even bills related to his own regime were also kept pending, ignoring their pleas. Allegedly only bills of big contractors and those who are known for their proximity with the key leaders of YSRCP used to be cleared at jet speed.
The contractors have raised concerns about this many times. They have also approached the courts and resorted to gravitational methods several times. However, the government has not budged. They kept delaying in clearing the bills due to them. The High Court warned the government several times about this, but to no avail. Finally, after the officials were brought to court, the clearance of these was started.
Also, the bills of small contractors who had done work during the YSRCP regime were not paid. With this, the Chandrababu government has decided to pay the bills of those contractors if they have bills below Rs. 5 lakhs. This means that the arrears of work done in the last 10 years are going to be paid to the tune of Rs. 400 crore. With this, the respective groups are expressing happiness during the festival.