Dasara won’t bring much joy to lakhs of Telangana employees who have been on an indefinite general strike for the past 17 days, and who will not be paid their salaries for the entire month.
The state government is willing to pay their salaries for the 12 days before they went on strike on September 13, but ironically, their bills cannot be processed because the drawing and disbursement officers as well as the pay and accounts staff are also on strike, a senior official said.
The government gave priority to payment of salaries to police and legal staff across the region and completed the process by Thursday, enabling salaries to be disbursed by October 1.
The Telangana employees working in the twin cities who went on strike will also get their salaries for the 12 days they worked, and their colleagues from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions will get their full salaries.
The problem is for those working in the districts where the strike is complete.
The government has also instructed the government owned Singareni Colleries to process the salary of those of its workers who are attending duties.
The official quoted above said that payment of salary for the majority of Telangana employees before Dasara is possible only if the strike is called off in another two days.
Finance Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy told media persons that there was no change in the government's decision to pay salary to all the employees, including those from Telangana, for the period they attended to duties.
"We will pay 12 days salary to T-employees provided all the procedures are completed," he said.