Andhra Pradesh employees cry foul over PRC orders

[Anta Assamey]

It was only 10 days ago that a video surfaced in the social media showing Andhra Pradesh employees’ joint action committee (JAC) chairman Bandi Srinivasa Rao dancing on a stage to celebrate chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s announcement increasing the retirement age of the employees from 60 years to 62 years.

Bandi was supposed to retire in another three months and he has now got three more years of service as bonus. He also praised Jagan for “satisfying” the employees with 23.29 per cent fitment in salaries and release of pending dearness allowance arrears.

There were reports that employees were not happy with the Pay Revision Commission implementation by the Jagan government and the JAC leaders have been trying to cover up the dissatisfaction among the employees.

But after going through the mid-night GOs issued by the Jagan government on the implementation of the PRC, the JAC leader took a complete U-turn and started attacking the Jagan government, saying it has treated employees in a cruel manner.

“I have never seen such a disastrous PRC in my service. The government has given some amount to the employees with one hand and collecting double the amount from them with another hand,” he said and demanded that the government should continue old PRC and dearness allowance.

According to the JAC leaders, the Jagan government has done away with city compensatory allowance (CCA) and reduced the house rent allowance (HRA) drastically.

What is more, the government has announced that since the new PRC is being implemented with effect from April 1, 2020, the employees would get the fitment of 23.29 per cent with effect from that date.

However, as they had been getting interim relief of 27 per cent since July 1, 2019, the government declared that they have been getting additional pay of 3.71 per cent since April 1, 2020. This additional pay would be adjusted in the dearness allowance paid for the nine months.

“In reality, the employees would be getting lesser salary than what they were getting in the past. So, let the government not implement the new PRC and continue the old PRC,” Bandi said.

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Salaries thaggincharu sare, but what about living expenses? Why should rural AP have high costs for everything?