Salary bill nearly 1/2 of state revenue

The salary bill of the state government has been increasing thanks to a series of pay hikes announced by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for government employees and elected representatives.

The annual salary bill was `18,400 crore when the state was formed in 2014. This increased to `25,000 crore in two years and is now touching `30,000 crore, putting enormous pressure on the finances.

Government employees had extended solid support to the TRS, which fought for statehood, and participated in the agitations and strikes. They expected to be rewarded by the TRS government and Mr Rao did not disappoint them. He announced a 43 per cent fitment (basic pay hike) for 3 lakh employees and 1.5 lakh pensioners in March 2015, to be paid with retrospective effect from June 2014.

This alone imposed a burden of `6,500 crore per year on the state’s exchequer. The government is in arrears of over `3,500 crore for the June 2014 to February 2015 period.

Undeterred by this, Mr Rao announced an even higher 44 per cent fitment for 57,000 RTC staff, imposing an additional burden of `800 crore per year.

In addition to this, the CM announced a ‘special Telangana increment’ in recognition of their active role in the statehood agitation, which has cost the state another `570 crore.

Besides, four DA were announced for employees, which amounted to nearly `500 crore.

Added to this, the CM announced salary hikes for contract lecturers, VROs, VRAs, anganwadi workers, and ASHA workers, which will cost another `450 crore.

The salaries of Cabinet ministers, MLAs, MLCs and public representatives were increased sharply from March 2016, imposing a burden of nearly `30 crore per year.

Nearly half of the state’s tax revenue is being spent on salaries, leaving limited resources for development and welfare schemes.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has announced a slew of salary hikes for different categories of workers and legislators.

Some of the increases have been more than recommended, as in the case of salary hikes for RTC employees.