Pay Review: PA Employees Take to the Streets; Department of Finance issues new Circular Note

Hundreds of staff and teachers marched through the streets of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday demanding the immediate withdrawal of pay review orders and leaders of the PRC Struggle Committee stayed away from talks with the committee government of five members to end the deadlock.

The Ministry of Finance today issued a new circular ordering treasurers and payroll and accounting officers to “take action strictly within the prescribed time” and issue salary and pension bills (for the month January) in accordance with the revised 2022 salary scales.

Ministers Botsa Satyanarayana, Perni Venkataramaiah and Government Counselor (Public Affairs) SRK Reddy, who are part of the government committee, waited for talks with the leaders of the PRC Struggle Committee for the second day, but the latter stayed away .

Instead, a few members of the Struggle Committee met with Botsa and others and submitted a letter stating their resolve to participate in the talks only if three of their main demands were met.

The demands included the withdrawal of salary review GOs or keeping them in abeyance, the submission of the Ashutosh Mishra Commission’s recommendations report and the payment of salary for the month of January according to the old salary scales.

Members of the government committee remained evasive even though Councilor Reddy criticized the GOs’ request for withdrawal.

“Redoing the whole exercise is not appropriate. The government is ready to discuss possible changes, so we have asked the leaders of the Struggle Committee to return for talks on the 27th,” Reddy told reporters.

Struggle Committee leaders YV Rao and Oscar Rao said they had made it clear to the government committee that they would only attend the talks if their main demands were accepted.

“We will continue the program of agitation already mapped out,” they said.

As part of the program, employees and teachers held rallies and sit-ins in all district headquarters on Tuesday over the issue of the salary review.

BJP State Chairman Somu Veerraju and other leaders participated in a “deeksha” (protest) at the party headquarters in Vijayawada in solidarity with the unresting employees.

“The credit for pushing employees into the streets goes to (Chief Minister) Jagan. This government is not even able to pay the salaries of its staff,” Veerraju said.

He demanded that the government immediately rescind the wage review orders.

State Congress Speaker Sake Sailajanath also lent his support to the workers’ struggle and demanded that the salary review GOs be withdrawn immediately.