10 lakh Andhra Pradesh govt employees to on

HYDERABAD: The entire state administration in Andhra Pradesh has come to a grinding halt as 10 lakh employees, including teachers, have gone on a three day pen down, tool down and chalk down strike from Wednesday.

Though the strike does not affect the economic activity in the state, it means paying Rs 158 crore per day as wages to the striking employees for doing nothing. The three day strike would mean that the government would be spending about Rs 474 crore on them without extracting any work.

The employees on the other hand claim that they should not be blamed for this economic loss to the exchequer since they have been patiently waiting for a positive reply from the state government for more than a year. According to employee unions they have not put up any fresh demands before the government. All that they wanted was implementation of the recommendations of the 9th pay revision commission. The commission had given 12 recommendations which were accepted by the government in 2009. Of that only one demand, fitment of scales was implemented by the state government.

The union leaders claim that the government since then had been dillydallying and had not taken any decision so far despite several meetings with cabinet sub committee. The demands include issuing of health cards to all the employees. But the government has turned down the proposal saying that it would soon constitute Arogya Trust and they would get health insurance cards. The employees are against insurance companies managing the health cards.

Another important demand is hike in house rent allowance (HRA). The cabinet sub committee suggested that it could accept a hike of 2% and not on the basis of category of the city they live in. It also indicated that it might accept the demand of automatic promotions after 6, 12, 18 years. However, there are serious differences on regularizing contract employees.

Employee union leaders K Swami Goud and V Gopal Reddy claim that if the government does not consider their demands sympathetically in next three days, they would go on an indefinite strike.

Read more: 10 lakh Andhra Pradesh govt employees on strike - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/10-lakh-Andhra-Pradesh-govt-employees-on-strike/articleshow/7318488.cms#ixzz1BVtWU0HC

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/10-lakh-Andhra-Pradesh-govt-employees-on-strike/articleshow/7318488.cms