Govt clears ₹30,000-cr outstanding dues of road contractors

After drawing flak from various quarters for delaying payment to road vendors and contractors, the Union finance ministry has fast tracked clearance of dues to boost liquidity in the system. The finance minister has taken cognizance of the issue and announced that dues from the government are being cleared at a faster pace. The construction sector has been facing liquidity crunch and now NHAI will clear ₹12,000 crore worth of pending bills to its contractors. Payments will be also be made automatically for pending bills. The government is fine tuning the payment process, by which bills that are pending beyond a certain time period will automatically get released, thus holding the CPSEs further accountable and fast tracking the payment mechanism. A lot of payments are getting delayed from government departments or central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and these delayed payments are being monitored by the department of expenditure, and the performance will be reviewed by the cabinet secretariat with a dashboard in front of them. The government is also pushing for faster clearance of dues after the disputed cases are settled.