India News | AP Finance Dept Issues Orders to Immediately Provide Data on Pending Dues

Amaravati, Mar 18 (PTI) With senior bureaucrats of the Andhra Pradesh government making a beeline to the High Court in recent days in contempt cases and facing flak over non-clearance of pending bills, the state finance department has asked all other departments to forthwith furnish complete data on pending payments.

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Once the departments submits all the data, it will be apprised to the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister, according to Special Chief Secretary (Finance) S S Rawat, who has told the department heads to treat the matter as "urgent".

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Though Rawat issued a similar memo to all departments earlier this month for furnishing data by March 11, only the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department shared the details.

He issued a fresh note on Friday setting March 21 as the fresh deadline for departments to comply with the order.

The Finance Department has classified the cases into six categories with contempt cases topping the list.

In recent days, many top bureaucrats, including the state Chief Secretary, were summoned to the AP High Court for personal appearance and pulled up over non-clearance of pending bills running into hundreds of crores of rupees.

The other day, a special chief secretary-rank officer appeared before three judges in five contempt cases, wherein payment of retirement benefits to government staff was involved.

"In our department, everything has been cleared but the payment is stuck with the Finance Department. Yet, as the department head, I had to face the court,” the Special Chief Secretary pointed out.

The senior bureaucrat was not alone as almost every department head has been facing the same situation.

The Special Chief Secretary (Finance) was pulled up by the High Court on several occasions, mainly over non-payment of MGNREGA dues.

Payments are not cleared even after the relevant bills were approved and uploaded on the government's Comprehensive Financial Management System (CFMS) portal.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)