AMARAVATI: Chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has assured the employees of extending all support in resolving their grievances in future.
He said employees are part of the government and they should feel that it is their government. He said the government is not in a position to grant more benefits due to Covid-induced financial troubles. Employee union leaders, who agreed to call off the indefinite strike late on Saturday night after an agreement with the government, met the chief minister at the latter's camp office on Sunday. The union leaders thanked the chief minister for being liberal to address their salary related issues.
Speaking to the employees' representatives, chief minister said the state government has prepared to face another 5,725 crore of annual burden to give relief to the employees. "I am fully aware of the fact that I could take up so many welfare programmes only because of the strong support of you people (employees). It is not possible to implement the schemes without whole-hearted support of the employees. I could have definitely done much better had the state's revenues were not hit due to Covid-19," said Jagan.
He said that the government has to take a burden of 5,400 crore for giving relief for nine months from the 30 months for which IR was paid by the government. Similarly, 325 crore is the additional burden due to the implementation of new HRA slabs from January 2022, said the CM. He said the government would take annual burden of 800 crore due to the revised HRA rates, 450 crore due to additional quantum of pension and 80 crore in the form of CCA.
CM said the government has to bear additional burden to the tune of 11,577 crore as against the initially anticipated burden of 10,247 crore following the implementation of new PRC. Jagan said the state's revenues are hovering around 62,000 crore since 2018-19 without any increment. He said the revenues should have touched at least 84,000 crore by 2020-21 with 15 per cent growth rate.
The chief minister appealed to the union leaders not to become emotional on such issues as they would always be available to address their grievances. He announced the continuation of cabinet committee to address the grievances of the employees from time to time. PRC struggle committee leaders Bandi Srinivasa Rao, K VenkataramiReddy, Bopparaju Venkateswarlu and KR Suryanarayana thanked the chief minister. Finance minister Buggana Rajendranath, government advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, and chief secretary Dr Sameer Sharma were also present.
