Central government employees in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are likely to launch a joint agitation protesting against the disparity in salary hikes effected by the state and central governments.
According to the Seventh Pay Commission report, the central government raised salaries only by 23 percent in the last decade while the governments of the two states gave an 82 percent for the same period, subject to a five-year review.
TS Employees Joint Action Committee leader G. Deviprasad told Deccan Chronicle, “Recommending just 23.5 per cent hike after a gap of 10 years shows the Centre’s negligent attitude towards its employees. Inflation has shot up sharply and prices of essential commodities have increased multiple times during the last decade. The state governments, with lesser revenues, have announced 43 per cent hike after five years but it’s unfortunate that the Centre had limited this to 25 per cent.”
Incidentally, fulfilling an election promise, the Telangana Cabinet approved the implementation of central pay scale to state employees in July 2014. This was initially an election agenda for then CM Chandrashekhar Rao in 2001.
Given the situation, the state government employees are demanding a rollback of that decision.
In the same article, TNGOs president K. Ravinder Reddy is quoted saying, “Salaries shot up steeply during Congress regime from 2004 to 2014, when two Pay Revision Commissions were constituted and implemented. This apart, the TS government approved 10th PRC, giving 43 per cent fitment in February this year, due to which salaries increased by 82 per cent in the last 10 years,”