AP staff to go on indefinite strike from February 7 on pay revision

Government employees, teachers, and retirees who have formed the 'PRC Struggle Committee' served notice on Monday that they would go on strike from midnight on February 7 to protest the move to implement revised pay scales based on the 11th Pay Revision Commission's recommendations, which they did not agree to.

The panel's leaders intended to meet with Chief Secretary Dr Sameer Sharma to give him the notice, but he was in New Delhi. They gave the warning to Sashi Bhushan Kumar, the principal secretary of the general administration department.

The employees' main complaint was that the government issued instructions on the 11th PRC without taking into account all of the service associations' objections and concerns during all rounds of talks. Employees, teachers, and retirees, they claimed, would suffer as a result of the pay raise. The employees say that there will be a downward revision in their salaries under the new pay scale implemented as per the GO issued recently.

They said that various organisations had demonstrated their dissatisfaction by calling for the government directives adopting the PRC suggestions to be withdrawn. The steering committee of their panel had unanimously decided to proceed with the agitation programme demanding immediate settlement of their demands after receiving no response from the government and given its efforts to implement the pay revision unilaterally, without even providing an option to choose the effective date.

Later, K.R. Suryanarayana, president of the AP Government Employees Association (APGEA), said that they had never considered going on strike but were obliged to do so because the government had issued the GOs on the PRC without taking their views into account. During the roundtable discussion on Sunday, they addressed concerns such as the Ashutosh Mishra Committee report, fitment, house rent allowance (HRA), and others, and decided to serve the strike notice, he added.

He said that 13 lakh employees and retirees were involved in the protest, and he voiced displeasure with the way the HRA was reduced. He claimed that the struggle committee lacked knowledge of the government-appointed five-member committee charged with debating the PRC issue.