AP govt. employees' getting ready for showdown over wage revision, to serve strike notice

Visakhapatnam/Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh Government and the employees seems to be on a collision course with the State Cabinet not conceding the demands over pay revision as sought by the latter.

Four organisations of government employees, who formed a Joint Action Committee, on Friday decided to serve a strike notice on January 24 and go strike from February 7.

organise protest programmes at the district level including roundtable conferences to drum up public support in favour of rollback of GOs 11th Pay Revision Commission (PRC) recommendations. Though said they will go on strike from February 8.

The Cabinet which met earlier in the day under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy approved the two GOs on release of GOs on payment of DA arrears for past two years, revision of salaries at 23 percent fitment and raising retirement age to 62 years.

The employees' associations termed the two GOs as a 'breach of trust,' saying their implementation would lead to drawal of less salary. The GOs were aimed at releasing DA arrears and revised salaries along with January salaries.

The government contention was that fall in revenue from Rs.62,473 crore in 2018-19 to Rs.60,688 crore in 2020-21 and implementation of various welfare schemes had hit the government exchequer adversely. Rejecting the NGOs' demands, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma said on

Thursday that their revenue should have gone up to Rs.98,000 crore during 2020-21. He said the third wave of Covid would further affect their finances.

AP Secretariat Employees' Association president K. Venkatram Reddy and AP NGOs' Association president Bandi Srinivasa Rao said they were constrained to go on strike due to rigid attitude of the government and blamed increase in retirement age to 62 from 60 without any demand and showing it as a big favour to them.