Andhra Pradesh Government staff 'reject' interest on back wages

Amravati: The Andhra Pradesh Government Employees Federation said that the government employees never demanded the 50 per cent of the salaries that were cut in the months of March and April along with 12 per cent interest.

K Venkatarami Reddy, chairman and Arava Paul, secretary general of the federation said in a statement here on Thursday that they would discuss the issue in the committee meeting before preferring appeal in the High Court.

Venkatarmi Reddy said that the government took the decision to slash the wages after holding talks with the government employees associations. "May be some people experienced financial problems to some extent and they might have approached the judiciary for redressal. But we did not entrust the responsibility to any person to file a writ petition on our behalf," he said.

He recalled that the armed forces personnel donated 11 days salary to tackle Covid-19 for the PM Cares Fund. Likewise, the Central government revenue employees also donated one day salary every month from April, 2020 to March 2021. "Under such circumstances, when the government was paying salaries though we are not working due to the pandemic, can we demand 12 per cent interest from the government? Don't we have social responsibility? "He wondered.

Venkatarami Reddy said that people would have very bad opinion on employees because of such writ petitions.

He said that the employees requested the government last month to pay the back wages and the government was considering the payment in three or four instalments.