HYDERABAD: The GHMC is not having a pleasant year-ending. After contractors stuck work on infrastructure works due to the delay in payments, the newspaper agency has threatened to the stop supplying newspapers as the corporation has not cleared bills for eight months, amounting to Rs 5 lakh.
The corporation, meanwhile, is struggling to put together Rs 120 crore to pay its employees and pensioners.
Officials claimed that the bills were in the wrong format, something that the agency denied. That appeared to be a delaying tactic.
Sources said that when junior officials took the issue of newspaper bills to their senior officials, they were told to fight for the December salary instead of worrying about clearing the bills of contractors and other agencies.
A senior GHMC official told Deccan Chronicle that the corporation has to struggle and put together money to pay the staff and pensioners, and clearing pending bills was not on their radar. He said the corporation would first pay the staff. Bills could be cleared only with state government help.
In September, the GHMC Contractors Association halted all engineering work, demanding the corporation clear their bills worth around Rs 800 crore which were pending since March. Holding placards saying ‘No payment, no work,’ the contractors staged demonstrations at all GHMC zonal offices. The association has about 3,000 contractors as members. The tiff between contractors and corporation is still continuing.
