Pay revision: Hundreds of Andhra Pradesh employees take to streets

Hundreds of employees and teachers marched on streets across Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday demanding that the orders on pay revision be withdrawn forthwith and the PRC Struggle Committee leaders stayed away from talks with the five-member government committee to end the impasse.

The Finance Department issued a fresh circular memo today directing the treasuries and pay and accounts officers to "take action strictly as per the prescribed timelines" and draw the salary and pension bills (for the month of January) as per the Revised Pay Scales 2022.

Ministers Botsa Satyanarayana, Perni Venkataramaiah and government advisor (public affairs) S R K Reddy, who are part of the government committee, waited for talks with the PRC Struggle Committee leaders for the second day but the latter stayed away.

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

The demands included withdrawing the pay revision GOs or keeping them in abeyance, handing over the report of the Ashutosh Mishra Commission recommendations and paying the January month's salary as per the old pay scales.

The government committee members remained non-committal even as the advisor Reddy found fault with the demand for withdrawal of the GOs.

"Redoing the entire exercise is not appropriate. The government is ready to discuss any possible alterations, so we have asked the Struggle Committee leaders to come for talks again on the 27th," Reddy told reporters.

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

"We will go ahead with the agitation programme already chalked out," they said.

As part of the programme, employees and teachers took out rallies and staged sit-in demonstrations in all district headquarters on Tuesday on the pay revision issue.

State BJP president Somu Veerraju and other leaders sat on a 'deeksha' (protest) at the party headquarters in Vijayawada in solidarity with the agitating employees.

"The credit for pushing the employees onto the streets goes to (Chief Minister) Jagan. This government is not in a position even to pay salaries to its staff," Veerraju said.

He demanded that the government immediately rescind the pay revision orders.

State Congress president Sake Sailajanath also extended support to the employees' struggle and demanded that the pay revision GOs be withdrawn forthwith.