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KCR announces salary hike for over 9 lakh govt employees, raises retirement age
A three-member committee led by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and comprising Principal Secretary (Finance) K Ramakrishna Rao and Principal Secretary (Water Resources Development) Rajat Kumar as members, will work out the modalities for implementing the decisions.
Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday announced an increase in salaries of all the state government employees as per the Pay Revision Commission recommendations and also raised their retirement age from existing 58 years.
The new pay scales and retirement age will be decided soon.
An official statement from the chief minister’s office said that Rao also decided to fill the backlog of vacancies in all government departments soon. KCR, as the chief minister is known, described the decisions as New Year gifts to the employees.
The statement said the chief minister has appointed an official committee led by chief secretary Somesh Kumar and comprising principal secretary (finance) K Ramakrishna Rao and principal secretary, water resources development Rajat Kumar as members, to work out the modalities for implementation of these decisions.
In the first week of January, the committee will study the pay revision commission’s (PRC) report. In the second week, the committee will meet representatives of employees’ unions.
“Based on the discussions, the committee will recommend to the government a percentage of salary hike, extent of enhancement in retirement age of employees, revision of service rules, revised policy for promotions and strategy to be adopted to overcome legal problems for implementing zonal system etc. Later, the state cabinet would meet and take the final decisions,” the official statement said.
The chief minister directed that the salary hike be extended to all the government employees, grant-in-aid employees, work-charged employees, daily wages employees, full time contingent employees, part-time contingent employees and pensioners among others.
“In all, the salary hike would benefit 9,36,976 employees. If need be, the financial burden on the Telangana state road transport corporation (TSRTC) due to salary hike would also be borne by the state government,” the official note, quoting the chief minister said.
The CM also declared that a recruitment drive would be launched in February after identifying all the vacant posts in the government.
