Telangana staff will not get arrears in one go

Hyderabad: In a big disappointment to three lakh employees and 1.80 lakh pensioners, the state government has made it clear that it would not pay in full the 10th Pay Revision Commission arrears, amounting to Rs 5,000 crore, due to financial constraints.

The government has stated that it can pay only half the arrears in cash, and that too in instalments, and the rest will be deposited in the General Provident Fund accounts.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had announced 43 per cent fitment, the highest ever for employees, in February 2015. It was decided to implement the revised salaries from June 2014, when the state was formed. The 10th PRC had recommended only 25 per cent fitment and the employees had never demanded arrears from June 2014.

TNGOs honorary chairman G. Deviprasad, and president Ravinder Reddy recently met Mr Rao and brought the issue to his notice. The CM is said to have made it clear that financial constraints would not permit the government to pay the arrears in cash at one go and asked them to cooperate with the government in this regard.

Following the directions of the CM, the finance department , which calculated the actual burden on government, has put the figure at Rs 5,000 crore. This came as a shocker for the TRS government which thought that the burden would be less than Rs 2,000 crore, when CM announced the salary hike in June 2014.

At one stage, Mr Rao tried in vain to convince the employees to accept bonds in lieu of arrears with a lock-in period of three to five years, but the employees unions strongly opposed this.

The ruling TRS has paid the price for the delay in payment of arrears when all employees’ unions worked against TNGOs leader Deviprasad, who lost as a TRS candidate in the MLC elections to BJP leader Ramachander Rao last year.
The monthly salary bill has touched Rs 2,600 crore. The annual salary bill crossed Rs 31,000 crore this year as against Rs 24,000 crore last year.