43% salary increase for all categories of government employees of Andhra Pradesh
HYDERABAD: Under pressure from his Telangana counterpart to match the salary hike for government staff, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday announced a 43% salary increase for all categories of employees. The Pay Revision Commission (PRC) had recommended a hike of 29%, but both AP and Telangana chose to peg the increase at 43%.
The hike will come into retrospective effect from June 2, 2014. The arrears will be credited in the general provident fund account of the staff and the revised salary paid from February onwards. More than six lakh employees and pensioners stand to benefit from the salary hike. “Though the state is going through a financial crisis, we have taken this decision keeping in mind the welfare of the employees. Now, I expect them to deliver the results in the form of better governance and better revenue collections,” Chandrababu Naidu told the media while announcing the salary hike.
The hike would cost the exchequer close to Rs 7,000 crore annually. At present, excluding the hike, the state generates annual revenue of Rs 47,000 crore but has a burden of Rs 53,000 crore in the form of salaries, pensions and interests on loans.
With this increase, the salaries of AP government employees have more than doubled in the last five years. The 63 per cent hike in dearness allowance effected during the last few months and the current 43 per cent hike will result in a 106 per cent hike in the salaries of all employees working in the state government. It would be near impossible for central government employees to get their salaries doubled even in 10 years whereas the AP and Telangana employees have achieved this rare feat in just five years.
“There is no need for the state’s youth to hanker after jobs in MNCs like Google, IBM and Microsoft. Thanks to the generous pay hike and raising the retirement age to 60, working in the AP government is a far better proposition,” said APNGOs president P Ashok Babu.
In fact, just last week, the employees had agreed to a 37 per cent salary increase. “However, the announcement of 43 per cent hike by the TRS government changed everything,” sources said. “In view of the hike in Telangana, Naidu had no choice but to follow suit. Now, it is clear that the bifurcation of united AP has benefitted the state government employees the most,” remarked a senior official in the AP government.
Source:Times of India
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