Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Mar 9: Natio-nal Conference today castigated the PDP-BJP Government in the State for perpetuating a sense of chaos in key public works departments due to the Government’s continued misgovernance evident in its failure to release nearly 700 crore of pending payments to contractors.
Addressing a Block level convention of the Party at Shalimar in Sonwar constituency today, senior NC leaders led by party general secretary Ali Mohd Sagar, Provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani, vice president Ch Mohd Ramzan, district president Srinagar Peer Mohd Afaq lashed out at the Government for pushing the State into a paralysis mode on the governance front while breaking every single political promise that was made to the people in the now abandoned ‘Agenda of the Alliance’.
Former Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather and Party’s Central Zone president Ali Mohd Dar have also hit at the Government for being least bothered about the alarming situation as key departments continue to be locked down for more than ten days at a stretch due to the Government’s failure to release a huge sum of pending payments.
Addressing the gathering Sagar said the Government should not have allowed such a huge sum of payments to be accumulated as a liability that the State Government is now evidently least concerned to clear. “This has resulted in an unprecedented lockdown of key Public Works Departments since the last almost two weeks and there seems no sign of a positive, critical engagement initiated by the Government. The contractors are demanding what is fairly owed to them and pushing them into a corner does not auger well for the State’s developmental objectives as this directly affects ongoing works.
While the Finance Minister in his Budget speech declared he has no liabilities, now we find out how nearly 700 crores of pending bills exist. This is yet another example of how this Government is toying with the State on not only the political front but also on the governance front”, the NC General Secretary said.
Aslam Wani said almost Rs 500 crore of these pending payments are from the last fiscal year while nearly Rs 130 crore of these pending payments exist from works undertaken by the Government in the aftermath of the 2014 floods. “While the PDP keeps experimenting on the political front by bartering the State’s political rights, fiscal autonomy and honour, the PDP-BJP Government’s various experiments on the governance front have wreaked havoc with the entire system and the results are here for all of us to see.
After abandoning the infamous ‘Agenda of the Alliance’, it seems the PDP-BJP Government has now decided to absolve itself from the responsibility of delivering basic governance too. The Finance Minister can keep changing systems and mechanisms of bill payments and dispensation but he should not torment thousands of families by withholding such a huge amount of pending bills for so long.
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