VIJAYAWADA: The Joint Staff Council meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma in the Secretariat on Wednesday evening ended in a deadlock after leaders of various employees’ associations made it clear that they have nothing to discuss with the officers on the fitment issue and will pursue the matter only with Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
When the Chief Secretary sought to know the opinion of employees’ leaders on fitment, they said as they have already discussed the matter with the officials as well as Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath and Government Advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, there is nothing to say and appealed to the Chief Secretary to arrange a meeting with the Chief Minister at the earliest.
Informing that the government is going through the 70 demands of employees’ excluding PRC fitment, the Chief Secretary said that efforts were on to resolve all the issues.
“With regard to PRC fitment and payment of pending bills, we have taken your response and will come to you once again after going through them,” he told the leaders of employees’ associations. “The government is with you and will strive to resolve all the issues amicably,” he asserted.
The Chief Secretary promised to release the pending bills and loans related to GPF, APGLI, medical reimbursement, retirement benefits on a priority basis. Speaking to mediapersons, chairmen of AP JAC and AP JAC Amaravati Bandi Srinivas and Bopparaju Venkateswarulu said that there was no scope for settling the fitment issue with the officers and they sought for the appointment of the Chief Minister.
“The Chief Secretary informed us that he will take details of the meeting to the notice of the Chief Minister next week,” they said. The unions also sought payment of Rs 1,600 crore pending towards payment and loans of GPF, APGLI and others. The CS said the bills will be cleared by the end of March, 2022.
While Bopparaju said the employees are worried over conflicting statements of Sajjala, Srinivas said the government should fix fitment more than 27%, as said by Sajjala. Demanding that the government give at least 34% fitment, AP Secretariat Employees Association president K Venkatarami Reddy accused the officials of misleading the CM. The Central Pay Commission is in no way taken as the basis for fixing the fitment.
14.29% fitment not acceptable: Unions
Reiterating that the 14.29% fitment recommended by the officers committee is not at all acceptable to them, the employees’ representatives said that they have explained to the CS about the cut in salaries of different categories of employees from Rs 4,000 to Rs 10,000 if the government fixes 14.29% fitment.