Pending wages hit NREGA work in drought-hit K’taka

Karnataka generated 1.46 crore days of employment in December 2018 after having maintained a consistent rise since June 2018.
The Centre has pending wage and materials bills of Rs 12,714 crore from all states, he said.
This year, Karnataka has Rs 1,146 crore (Rs 524 crore wages and Rs 622 crore material cost) payments pending.
“We’ve been telling the Centre to take this money and clear our bills.
Why are they making this complicated?
Our bills are already with them and we’re giving them the money, too,” Gowda said.
“This will not be enough to clear the outstanding bills and the Centre will have no money to run the scheme for the next two months of this financial year,” RDPR principal secretary L K Atheeq said.
In 2016, too, Karnataka paid Rs 2,175 crore from its own pocket when the Centre defaulted on payments for six months.
“We’re yet to get back Rs 913 crore,” Gowda said.
“So, the Centre still owes Karnataka Rs 2,059 crore, of which only Rs 117 crore has been released.

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