STAFF WANT HIKED PAY, NOT BONDS
The government is contemplating issuing bonds with a validity of 10 years with a lock in period of five years
Telangana government employees are insisting that the arrears in their salary be be credited to their GPF accounts in cash along with salary instead of bonds.
The Telangana government’s bonanza to employees by increasing salaries by 43 per cent (basic pay) has failed to satisfy the employees.
Though the government had issued orders on Wednesday for payment of the revised pay scales for salaries to be paid in April, there has been no mention about payment of salary arrears of last 10 months since the formation of the new state. The TS government has decided to implement new pay scales from June 2, 2014, when TS was formed. Employees demanded that the payment of arrears be credited to their GPF accounts in cash along with salary.
However, the government is seriously contemplating issuing bonds with a validity of 10 years due to financial constraints with a lock in period of five years. After five years, employees can encash these bonds.
But employees are raising several doubts over these 10year bonds pointing out that what if government changes during the general elections in 2019 and 2024 and there is no guarantee that the subsequent government will honour these bonds.
Employees argues that they were originally eligible for revised pay scales from July 2013, but agreed from June 2014 with a view that TS was only formed in June 2014 and they did not want to burden the government by claiming arrears from the united AP state.
“We have been waiting for nearly a year for payment of arrears through cash. The proposal of the government to issue bonds shocked us,” said TSPRTU president P.Venkat Reddy, a major teachers organisation in Telangana.
Opposition parties are also targeting the TRS government on this front.
The pay hike will impose around `6,500 crore additional burden on the state ex-chequer. About 3, 00,000 employees, including teachers, and another 1,80,000 pensioners will be benefitted.