Retiring Telangana staff raise burden

Hyderabad: Despite giving the highest-ever fitment to staff, the Telangana government failed to satisfy the employees due to non-payment of arrears so far.

The ruling TRS has already paid a heavy price in the Graduate MLC elections in April this year when its candidate and TNGOs leader G. Deviprasad lost to the TD-BJP combine. It is widely believed that the employees worked against him for non-payment of arrears and for proposing to pay arrears in bonds. Meanwhile, hundreds of employees have been retiring each month, imposing a further burden on the government.

“Each employee is entitled to Rs 20 lakh towards gratuity and other retirement benefits. Major portion of the salary fund is going towards regular monthly salaries, pensions and settlement of retirement benefits, leaving limited resources to clear arrears,” said a finance department official.

The TS government is now exploring options to pay arrears in cash instalments instead of bonds. It is planning to pay the arrears in instalments for major festivals like Dussehra, Diwali, Ugadi etc., for a period of four years.

Another option is to credit the amount in GPF account in instalments, keeping an upper ceiling on its withdrawal by employees. But it remains to be seen whether the employees agree to these proposals.