Andhra Pradesh employees seek sops to avert strike

Vijayawada: With no headway in resolving the deadlock over revised payscales, a majority section of employees is ready to accept the upward revision of house rent allowance (HRA), restoration of city compensatory allowance (CCA) and additional quantum of pension of 10 per cent to pensioners aged 70 to 80 years.

Employees in the AP Secretariat and in the offices of heads of departments located in the capital Amaravati and its surrounding areas used to get HRA of 30 per cent which was decreased to 16 per cent in the revised payscales.

Employees working in district headquarters and in urban centres used to get HRA of 20 per cent and those in villages and mandals 12 per cent. It was cut to eight per cent for both.

State employees working in the capital used to get CCA of Rs 1,000 and those in other places Rs 700. The state government abolished the CCA. Pensioners in the age group of 70 to 80 years used to get additional quantum of pension of 10 per cent of basic pay which was also abolished.

The government announced interim relief of 27 per cent of basic pay in 2019 and recently announced fitment of 23 per cent. This meant the balance would be recovered from the employees.

To resolve this, employees unions asked the government to revise the three slabs of HRA upwards, restore CCA and additional quantum of pension.

Meanwhile, the state government issued GO Ms No.12 on Saturday revising the HRA to 16 per cent from 8 per cent to the employees working in head of the departments of the director of works accounts and pay and accounts office, Ibrahimpatnam, based a request from HoDs situated around Vijayawada on par with the employees working in the Secretariat at Velagapudi and other HoDs working in Vijayawada.

The revised HRA is applicable to all the employees of the HoDs, who are relocated from Hyderabad and those whose working office locations fall under the 8 per cent HRA area.

Welcoming the gesture, employees want similar relief by some percentage points to ease the tense situation and prevent the employee strike from February 7.

The employees rejected the government's claim that the wages would go up under the PRC. They claimed that if the revised payscales were to be implemented in the present format, the government will recover differential amounts for HRA and IR to the tune of several thousands of rupees from each employee.

For instance, an employees’ leader said that in the old scales, an employee with basic pay of Rs 34,100 would get DA of Rs 18,949 (55.568 per cent of basic), interim relief of Rs 9,207 (27 per cent), HRA Rs 10,230 (30 per cent) and CCA of Rs 700, totalling Rs 73,186.

In the new PRC, the employee with basic pay of Rs 52,600, would DA of Rs 10,531, HRA of Rs 8,416 and no IR and CCA. The total pay would be Rs 71,547. The net loss calculated in new PRC was Rs 1,639 for January 2022.

The monthly salary loss for 21 months, when the PRC calculation began, comes up to Rs 34,419. IR recovery is Rs 52,154 and HRA recovery is Rs 1,82,537 and total loss is estimated to be Rs 2,69,110.