Efforts afoot to solve Archakas pay woes

​Hyderabad: State government decided to constitute a committee that will enable Archakas to represent their grievances regarding salaries. Addressing a press conference here, Endowments Minister A Indrakaran Reddy said that the government could not provide salaries to Archakas through treasury because of some technical reasons. He said that the data pertaining to 131 temples under category 6 (B), 6 (C), 6 (D) was not uploaded online.

The Minister said that a committee was being formed to allow Archakas to represent their grievances. He said that there were 646 assessable temples in the State and to provide revised salaries, the government has to fix the cadre strength institution wise and later upload the data online. Reddy said that so far Archakas and temple employees pertaining to 515 temples have given their details and the government was waiting data of another 131 temples.

He said that so far revised salaries were being given to 1,903 employees and scrutiny was going on for 1,500 employees. By the month end, revised salaries would be given to Archakas and temple employees. For the others, the revised salaries would be provided after uploading the data online and fixing the cadre strength, the Minister added.

The Minister asked the main opposition Congress not to politicise the issue. He said that the Congress and the TDP governments neglected the temples during their tenure. 

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government gave Rs 238 crore for Vemulawada temple development but the Congress leaders still allege that there was no development of temples in the State.