The Andhra Pradesh government owes a huge amount of money to the mid-day meal workers in the form of wages. This would include both cooking expenditure and the wages as well, said Union Minister of State for Education, Annpurna Devi in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

TDP MP K Ramamohan Naidu raised the question relating to the mid-day meal scheme under the Prime Minister Poshan Shakti Nirman. He said that the AP government had not paid the cooking cost to the agencies and wages to the workers.

The Union minister said that the State government has to pay Rs 1,42,19,785 towards cooking cost and another Rs 41,51,000 towards wages to the workers engaged in the programme. He said that the districts of Chittoor and East Godavari stood on top in getting arrears of cooking expenditure as well as the wages to the workers.

He said that the government of Andhra Pradesh had cleared the bills for the single agencies engaged in the programme. However, the Union Minister said, that “the delay in payment of these pending bills is due to some technical reasons in banks and change of cooking agencies.”

However, the Union Minister said that the Central government is in constant touch with the state government for the successful implementation of the scheme including the payment of the expenses and wages.