AP gives 27% interim relief to state employees

Move to benefit 950,000 employees and 550,000 pensioners in AP

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Thursday announced an interim relief (IR) of 27 per cent of the basic pay with immediate effect as an election year bonanza benefiting the 950,000 government employees and another 550,000 pensioners in the state.

The employees will be getting more than 50 per cent hike in their salaries from January itself due to this liberal pay hike, according to a back-of-the-envelop calculation made by employee associations.

This is the highest-ever IR given to its employees by the state government so far. In the last election year (2009), then chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy had announced a 22 per cent IR, which was then considered to be a very liberal offer.

This comes on the back of a series of agitations, either opposing or supporting the state bifurcation, launched by government employees of both Telangana and Seemandhra regions.

The move would cost an additional Rs 7,600 crore to the state exchequer while the government will have to incur an additional expenditure of Rs 1,920 crore towards the salary bill during the January-March quarter of the current financial, according to the chief minister.

Currently, the state government is incurring an expenditure of Rs 51,719 crore towards the salary bill of its employees.

The new pay hike will enhance the annual salary bill to around Rs 60,000 crore, one-third of the Rs 1.27 lakh crore revenues projected for the current financial year in the present annual Budget.

Employees are believed to had played an important role in getting the Congress party back into power in the 2004 elections after they got uncomfortable with the intense work schedules given by the previous government when N Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister.

In a bid to keep the employees happy, Kiran Reddy has even crossed the limits imposed by the FRBM Act on the non-plan expenditure by Rs 4,000 crore, according to the chief minister’s own admission.