Minor irrigation minister Boseraju contests KSCA claims, says funds released ‘transparently’

Bengaluru: Minor Irrigation Minister N S Boseraju claimed on Friday that funds had been released “transparently” to all contractors working with his department.

“As of March 2025, of the total 2,637 works, money has been fully released for 660 works and partially for 1,977 works. How can there be partiality and interference in this? The allegations by the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association (KSCA) president are baseless,” Boseraju said during a presser.

The presser comes a day after the minister met KSCA representatives and spoke to them about their grievances. Earlier this month, KSCA had made corruption charges against Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, Public Works Minister Satish Jarkiholi and Boseraju. 

The association’s president Manjunath had also accused Boseraju’s son Ravi Boseraju of “interfering” in departmental activities. Contesting those claims, the minister said there had been no interference from his son. 

“I have only made all the decisions. In my absence, my son has only received requests but has not interfered with administrative issues. Let a single contractor prove that they haven’t got funds,” he added.

Reacting to allegations by the KSCA that payments were not being made based on seniority, Boseraju said: “The question of seniority doesn’t arise when we have released funds to all contractors. This method has been adopted for the first time. If we follow seniority, only a few contractors will benefit from it. They have requested to clear bills based on seniority. We will decide on this after speaking to the chief minister.”

Boseraju accused the previous BJP government of leaving behind many pending payments.

“The previous BJP government took up many projects outside the Budget limits and left behind pending bills amounting to Rs 12,693.73 crore in 15,549 works. As a result, we started clearing bills of pending works in 2023-24 and started new ones only in 2024-25. In 2024-25, 13,913 spillover projects worth Rs 9,974.34 crore were in progress.”

He explained that complete payments were made for modernising lakes costing up to Rs 10 lakh and for dam pickup works worth up to Rs 15 lakh.