Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Secretary K Ramakrishna Rao said that the state government’s monthly salary and pension bill has shot up four-fold over the last decade to Rs 6,000 crore.
He revealed that chief engineers of power utilities make Rs 7 lakh per month while senior class 4 employees, like sweepers earn around Rs 2 lakh per month. He made the comments while addressing a conference on recommendations of 16th Finance Commission – organised by the Centre for Economic and Social Studies.
Public sector salaries shot up due to pay revisions:
He said that the bill was Rs 1,500 crore when Telangana was carved out from Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Since then, salary, pensions and expenses ballooned by 300 percent due to successive pay revisions, which coincided with election cycles, driving up fixed costs.
The chief secretary said that the successive revisions resulted in public-sector salaries exceeding the salaries of IAS officers and even the governor. The salaries of employees in power utilities tend to be higher because of a revision once every four years, he said.
Entry-level municipal staff earn around Rs 28,000 per month while workers with more than 25 years of experience get paid over Rs 1 lakh. In GHMC, 2 percent sanitation workers are regularised, making the eligible for Rs 70,000 per month with benefits.
Salary revision depend upon government appointed pay revision commissions, which apply ‘fitment’ percentage. It includes combined basic pay and dearness allowance, raising overall salaries across employee categories.
The high salaries have intensified competition for government jobs, he said. Telangana has sustained expenditure with strong economic performance and a steady increase in revenue sources, he said.