Andhra Pradesh: TDP slams 'hired government employees' leaders

Amaravati: TDP national spokesman Kommareddy Pattabhi on Monday accused some government employees' leaders of mortgaging the interests of the lakhs of their colleagues to the YSRCP government for the sake of narrow personal gains and undue political favours.

Pattabhi asserted that these 'hired employees' leaders' are solely acting at the behest of the ruling YSRCP leaders. They are making wrong statements on the boycott of the panchayat elections while thousands of employees are ready to attend poll duty at the scheduled time.

Addressing a press conference here, the TDP leader posed a series of questions to the employees' leaders as to why they were keeping silent when the Jagan Mohan Reddy government gave a raw deal to all the government employees in respect of the provident fund, life insurance, retirement benefits, surrendered leave, compensatory pension scheme, leave travel compensation, Pay Revision Commission and so on. Most of these facilities are just part of administrative clearance but the ruling party is creating needless hurdles. The benefits that used to be handed over to the employees in days and weeks, were now being given after four to five months.

Pattabhi added that the 'hired leaders' owed an explanation to the employees why they have totally surrendered to the government on all aspects including the elections. The employees are deploring that they are being needlessly dragged into politics while they would like only to work as per the Constitution. The YSRCP government is creating problems in clearance of applications relating to the AP Government Provident Fund. The benefits are reaching the employees after four to eight months, which was not seen before in history.

Stating that hurdles were being created everywhere, Pattabhi said that the claims under the AP Government Life Insurance (APGLI) are not being cleared in time. No retirement benefits are being promptly paid. A retired employee is forced to go round offices for six to seven months for gratuity and pensions. The payments towards the surrendered leave are kept pending. The Chief Minister promised to cancel the Compensatory Pension Scheme (CPS) within a week of coming to power but no action was taken even after 20 months. More unfortunately, the CPS contributions were not being paid. The TDP regime made timely payments and stood in first place in the entire country at that time.

The TDP leader asked why Jagan Reddy has not extended benefit in the past 20 months even though the report of the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) was readily available. The 'hired leaders' of the employees are keeping silent for reasons best known to them. They are making false allegations against Chandrababu Naidu who actually gave a greater benefit of 43 per cent fitment with 18 arrears, he said.