The Andhra Pradesh government, and especially the IAS officers are forced to roam around the High Court for the National Employment Guarantee Scheme arrears that are yet to be paid to them. Superiors have been asked to visit the court every single time there’s a hearing.
Panchayati Raj and Finance Ministry officials Gopalakrishna Dwivedi and Harish Rawat appeared before the high court today and said that Rs. 400 Crores have already been paid and that the remaining Rs. 1,100 Crores would be paid within the next week. The petitioners said that the amount had been deposited into the Panchayat’s account, and not into the contractors’ account. They also brought to the notice of the HC that the government was not giving the contractors their dues and that it was harassing them. The HC asked the government to submit a report after having paid the contractors their dues.
The Centre and the state argued separately in the HC, with the state lawyers saying that the Centre should release the funds, while the Centre lawyers saying that the funds have already been released. The HC directed them to submit an affidavit on who paid how much. Justice Battu Devanand ordered that all the five hundred people under the employment bills scheme should be paid the money within the next two weeks.
