Botsa tells Andhra Pradesh staff leaders to join talk on pay revision

Vijayawada: The deadlock over the implementation of new pay scales for government employees and teachers continued on Friday, with both sides sticking to their respective stands.

The government is refusing to budge to pressure for the withdrawal of the GO it issued for implementation of the 11th Pay Revision Commission. It insists that the employees take the new wages from the January salary. The employees, who have rejected the 11th PRC, are demanding that the old wage system be continued until fresh changes are effected based on mutual discussions between them and the government.

Though the state government set up a Ministers’ Committee comprising Perni Venkateswara, Botsa Satyanayrana, Buggana Rajendranath, government adviser Sajjala Ramakrishna and chief secretary Sameer Sharma to hold talks with the representatives of employees, these leaders under the banner of the PRC Struggle Committee did not turn up for a meeting. They insist on the withdrawal of the GO as a precondition for more talks.

Minister for municipal administration said issues can be solved only through talks. Maintaining that representative of “some unions” met the ministers’ panel for talks on Friday, he said that if the leaders shunned talks, law might take its own course.

The minister said the YSRC government has offered higher wages to the employees, as compared to previous PRCs, and advised them to check whether their wages were enhanced or not. “First, take the pay slips as per the revised scales of pay and see whether the PRC has benefited you. I promise that there will not be any decrease in salary even by a single rupee, unlike what the employee leaders are saying,” he said.

He said, “We are ready to hold talks with any employee union or any employee. If the employees are having a problem, it means the state government is also having the problem. The employees’ unions are displaying a new culture of confrontation with the government. We are no more going to wait for employees’ leaders at the Secretariat, as we had been doing in the last few days. We will come for talks only when we are called by the employees’ unions,” the minister affirmed.

Government adviser (Public Affairs) Ramakrishna Reddy said the employees would get wages for the month of January as per the revised scales of pay under the 11th PRC. Maintaining that the state government appointed the ministers’ committee to avoid a conflict of interests, he said if the employees’ unions had come forward for talks, the state government would have considered their demands.

He alleged that the employees were not allowing the drawing and disbursing officers to prepare wage bills for January.