The contractors warned of more protests if their bills are not cleared by 20 March.
Published Mar 08, 2025 | 2:02 PM ⚊ Updated Mar 08, 2025 | 2:19 PM
Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka.
Synopsis: Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka left the Secretariat without meeting the contractors, who said their bills have been pending with the government for long. The protestors also said some officials were demanding bribes through middlemen. The protest and the bribe charge came even as the government is preparing to table the Budget.
Civil works contractors from various districts hustled with the security staff outside Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka at the state Secretariat on Friday, 7 March.
The protestors, mostly small-time contractors, arrived at Vikramarka’s office demanding the clearance of their bills pending before the government.
They alleged that some officials demanded through middlemen a bribe of 20 percent of the bill amount. The contractors tried to remind the deputy chief minister of his and Revanth Reddy’s promise to clear the bills once the Congress assumed power in the state.
Vikramarka, who holds the finance portfolio, and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy made the promise during the Assembly poll campaign in 2023, the protestors said.
The security personnel stopped the contractors as they approached Vikramarka’s office during the afternoon visiting hours. Angered by the security preventing them, they reportedly tried to force their way in.
Meanwhile, the deputy chief minister left the Secretariat, apparently to avoid further embarrassment.
Most pending bills were for the works carried out during the previous BRS regime, the contractors said.
Though bills pending with the government were not new, the allegation of 20 percent bribe demand has come as a shocker to the Congress dispensation.
The protest — and the allegation — came even as the government was preparing to present the state Budget for the financial year 2025-26 in the Assembly. The incident might arm the BRS to go for the government’s jugular during the Assembly session beginning on 12 March.
The civil contractors were planning to lay siege to the state Assembly if the government did not address their problem by 20 March.
Speaking to reporters, the Civil Contractors’ Welfare Association Darsanala Sankaraiah said that no minister was forthcoming on the issue of pending bills. Instead, he claimed, they were asked not to raise the issue.
He said the contractors were forced to pawn the jewellery of their family members to raise capital for the works, and now the bills were stuck, awaiting clearance. He said the contractors, who had availed loans for executing the works, were contemplating to end their lives due to the uncertainty over clearing their dues.
He said the deputy chief minister had promised to clear their bills by 20 March, and if he did not keep his word, they would have to resort to agitations.
Association advisor Ajay said that there were about 6,000 small-time contractors whose bills were below ₹10 lakh each. The government has to pay up at least ₹500 crore, but the contractors who had executed huge works seem to be having no problem in getting their bills cleared.
One such contractor had his bills for ₹700 crore cleared recently, he said.
Later in the day, Vikramarka said that after assuming power in the state, the Congress government had paid ₹10,000 crore towards retirement benefits of employees.
Speaking at a Joint Action Committee meeting of the employees at the Secretariat, he said that the government was yet to clear retirement benefits of the employees, which were about ₹8,000 crore.
He promised to settle the accounts of those retiring immediately from April and clear the arrears at the rate of about ₹500 to ₹600 crore per month. He, however, did not clarify when the contractors’ bills would be cleared.
BRS fires at state government
Seizing the opportunity, BRS leader and former finance minister T Harish Rao wondered whether “People’s Government” meant escaping from clearing the bills of contractors.
He said the contractors’ protest had laid bare the Congress’s inherent tendency to rake in commissions on works done by contractors.
“Why did Bhatti Vikramarka leave the secretariat through the backdoor when the contractors went there to seek clearance of their bills?” he asked.
He pointed out that it was inhuman that the government was not settling the accounts of the employees retiring from service. “The government has to pay up retired employees about ₹6,000 crore. They have been running from pillar to post,” he said.
Harish Rao said that the contractors’ revelation of bribe demand was a blot on Telangana’s image. Already, there have been allegations that ministers collected bribes to send truckloads of money to the party high command, he alleged.
He demanded that the central probe agencies should suo motu launch an investigation into the allegations of the collection of bribes. He also sought a white paper on the payments made by the finance department after the Congress came to power in December 2023.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
