Karnataka: Pending bills of contractors hit Rs 15,000 cr

The financial woes of the state government over the last couple of years have meant that pending bills to various contractors have now ballooned to over Rs 15,000 crore.

According to government sources, the public works department (PWD) had bills worth Rs 4,500 crore due - which was the highest among all government departments. This was followed by the water resources department and BBMP, which had bills close to Rs 3,000 crore due.

Representatives of the Karnataka State Contractors Association say that such pendency is unprecedented and questions remained over when the payment will be done to them.

According to the government, pendency of bills is a regular phenomenon and the arrears will be cleared at the earliest.

Highly placed sources in the government said that pending bills had started accumulating since the 2018-19 fiscal.

Read | PWD contractors urge govt to clear pending bills

When the coalition government under H D Kumaraswamy collapsed, bills due to various contractors was Rs 4,500 crore-Rs 5,000 crore, Since then, decline in state revenue - especially in the last two fiscals - has caused the bills to pile up, sources said.

“PWD dues to contractors was around Rs 1,300 crore-Rs 1,500 crore in July 2019. It has tripled in the last two years. Bills are pending in a majority of the departments. The maximum is in PWD,” sources said. Other departments with high pending bills includes the rural development and panchayat raj department.

D Kempanna, president of the Karnataka State Contractors Association, said that though bill payment was delayed in the past, the sheer amount kept pending is unprecedented. “I don’t recall any period when the pending amount was so high,” he said.

When contacted, Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi said pending bills was a regular phenomenon. He claimed that almost all of the pending bills worth Rs 15,000 crore were inherited from the previous government. “We are clearing all the arrears,” he said. To a question, Savadi said that the current economic situation had hit revenue generation, which had an effect on the clearance of bills.