A division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court comprising Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice N. Jayasurya on Wednesday pulled up the State government for not clearing the bills amounting to ₹1,794 crore under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) for the 2019-20 financial year.
Taking strong exception to the government’s claim that ₹413 crore had been paid against the total outstanding of ₹1,794 crore, the bench said that it would brook no further delay in clearing the dues.
Principal Secretary (Panchayat Raj and Rural Development) Gopal Krishna Dwivedi and Commissioner M. Girija Shankar, who were present during the hearing, informed the High Court that the balance would be paid in four weeks, even as the petitioner’s counsel argued that only ₹40 crore had been remitted during the year and that the government still owed about ₹2,500 crore.
Vigilance inquiry
The bench agreed to it, but directed the government to furnish full details of the payments made village-wise in the form of an affidavit on August 18, to which date the case has been posted. Chief Justice Goswami and Justice Jayasurya questioned Mr. Dwivedi about the outcome of the vigilance inquiry into the circumstances that led to the inordinate delay in making the payments and the persons responsible for it and ordered him to submit the information.
The bench expressed dissatisfaction at the absence of a top official of the Finance Department who was supposed to give an explanation, and ordered that he should appear in person during the next hearing on August 18.
