Vijayawada: Government doubles HRA

Vijayawada: The Government of Andhra Pradesh on Saturday doubled the house rental allowance (HRA) of employees from the recently announced 8 per cent to 16 per cent. This has been one of the major demands of the protesting government employees, who have even knocked on the doors of the High Court seeking justice.

However, this change in the HRA benefit would apply to employees working in and around Vijayawada and to all the HoD staff who shifted from Hyderabad. Principal Secretary Rawat issued the orders on Saturday evening.

The Principal Secretary also issued orders to the Collectors to initiate disciplinary action against the Treasury officials and DDOs who refused to put up salaries according to the PRC recommendations as ordered earlier.

The HRA has been the bone of contention in the dispute between the employees and the Government as the State had invoked a Central Government clause in fixing the HRA, which the AP employees said in fact lowered their take away salary.

The employees are agitated over the PRC recommendations not only on the HRA issues, but also on other issues related to fitment since they were detrimental to their interests.

The State Government has been urging the employees to come for talks to iron out the differences. Advisor to the Chief Minister, Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy on Friday said that the CM had no ill-will towards the employees and had kept the doors of the government open to resolve the dispute. He lamented the fact that though he had been waiting "for two days to talk to them, the employees' leaders have not come forward". On the other hand, employees' leader Srinivasa Rao kept maintaining that the Chief Minister had promised 23% fitment and DAs. But the salaries approved by the PRC were far below the interim relief (IR). A Central government scheme was introduced to do away with the HRA. The government had promised five DAs, but while implementing the same, it had done away with other benefits, he said.

The issue drew the Opposition into it immediately, which targeted the government over the 'injustice' done to the employees, while the Government kept insisting that the employees were only being misled by the political parties.