AMARAVATI: Allaying apprehensions of government employees, chief secretary Dr Sameer Sharma has assured that no employee will face a pay cut after the implementation of 23 per cent fitment.
He said new pay scales based on the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) recommendations were announced after taking all factors into account. Dr Sharma added that the salaries budget is very high in Andhra Pradesh when compared to many other states and employees should understand the state's financial status.
Speaking to the media here on Wednesday, Dr Sharma said the government incurred an additional burden of 17,000 crore due to the implementation of 27 per cent interim relief (IR) in the last three years. He said employees were aware of the fact that IR is not the final fitment and it was granted due to delay in finalisation of PRC recommendations. "Chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is sympathetic towards the employees and the government did every bit to do justice to them," said Dr Sharma. He explained that Covid-19 has impacted the state's revenues, which dipped to 62,000 crore against the anticipated 98,000 crore in the last fiscal and the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is likely to further deepen the losses to the exchequer.
Dr Sharma added that AP is the first state to increase the retirement age to 62 years from 60 years. He said the government has to balance expenditure on all heads, including welfare scheme and salaries. He added that AP has not stopped implementation of welfare schemes to the poor despite poor revenues.
Special chief secretary (finance) SS Rawat said the state government lost nearly 32,000 crore in 2018, 28,000 crore in 2019 and 24,000 crore in 2020-21. He said the government was compelled to spend over 30,000 crore due to Covid-19 to strengthen infrastructure in public healthcare. He added that the state's tax revenues fell from 62,000 crore in 2018-19 to 60,000 crore in 2020-21. "We should have got at least 82,620 crore at 15 per cent growth rate. Surprisingly, the revenues stood at 60,000 crore due to Covid-19," said Rawat.
He said the government increased the honorarium of Asha and anganwadi workers, benefiting nearly three lakh employees. He added that the absorption of APSRTC by the state government resulted in an additional burden of 5,380 crore in the form of salaries and creation of village and ward secretaries led to an additional burden of 2,000 crore on the exchequer. He said the government has also increased the salaries of outsourced employees without any demand.
