State Owes Rs 4,000 Crore to Sarpanchs

 Hyderabad: With their five-year term ending on Wednesday, sarpanchs across the 12,769 panchayats in the state are a worried lot over uncertainty on the payment of bills for the works executed by them during the BRS regime. They peg total dues at around Rs 4,000 crores from both the state and the Centre.

They lament that two years of their tenure went without much activity as they were not allowed to make banking transactions on behalf of panchayats for the first eight months from February 2, 2019 and later the Covid pandemic struck the world.

The Telangana Panchayat Raj Act of 2018 brought in by the BRS government, they say, constricted the cheque power of sarpanchs by making the signature of upa-sarpanchs mandatory.

“The 2018 Act for the first-time gave power to remove an elected representative to the collector, who is a bureaucrat. Telangana is the only state which has given such power to them over us. I need to get Rs 6 lakhs for the work done by me. We were forced to take up work owing to fear of suspension. I did not take up any new works owing to the pendency of payments by the BRS government. We did not get funds from both the Centre and state during the Covid pandemic. Even the bleaching powder that was sprayed in the containment zones during the pandemic was bought by us. We got the dead cremated and supplied food to the needy,” said P. Praneel Chander, general secretary of the Telangana Panchayat Sarpanchs Association.

Commenting on the situation, Soudani Bhumanna Yadav, the founder president of the Telangana Panchayat Sarpanches Association, said that around 13 sarpanches ended their lives in the last five years.

“We met the Chief Minister and conveyed our problems to minister Seethakka and sought payment of pending bills. Among other things, we sought removal of joint cheque power with upa-sarpanch. If needed, the panchayat secretary can be the joint signing authority. A sarpanch from Somwarpet village in Ellanthakunta mandal of K.T. Rama Rao’s Sircilla constituency Vadde Ananth Reddy ended his life after he incurred a debt of Rs 60 lakhs. He has no right to talk about our problems having neglected us for ten years.”

Juluru Dhanalakshmi, the woman president of Telangana Panchayat Sarpanches Association, aired similar views and concerns on the joint cheque power with upa sarpanchs. Funds from the Centre are also pending. “I have to get Rs 20 lakh which I spent from my pockets but there are others who have spent by borrowing from outsiders and are financially broken,” she said.