Due to the economic impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak, the state of Telangana has decided to cut the salaries of the government servants including that of Members of the Legislative Assembly. This comes a day after Telangana Chief Minister claimed that there will no new coronavirus case post-April 7th.
On Monday, the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao announced in what is being called as a drastic step. It is indeed a drastic step as the state aims to cut down salaries and even pensions of the former government employees. The announcement comes on the day when the state witnessed five deaths due to the COVID-19 disease.
75 percent cut for MLAs
The decision of slashing the payments was taken after the Chief Minister chaired a high-level meeting held at Pragathi Bhavan, the Chief Minister’s residence. According to the decision, there will be a cut of 75 percent in the salaries of the Chief Minister, Members of the Legislative Assembly, Ministers, and chairpersons of state and local corporations.
The All India Services staff like IAS, IPS is likely to face a cut of 60 percent while other gazetted and non-gazetted officers are set to receive only half their salaries. Those include PSUs too. The Pensions are also set to be cut by half. In the case of contract-based outsourced workers’ salaries and lower end of state government employees, the cut is likely to be only 10 percent.
The move also comes as the GST collection of the state fell from 7,000 crore rupees to 4,000 crore rupees. With economic relief announced to the poor, the Chief Minister felt that to pay the salaries in full will be a burden on the state.
A statement from the Chief Minister’s Office said, ‘
“The Coronavirus is adversely impacting the Telangana state’s economic situation. In this background, the state government had to act with caution and foresight.”
As of 31st March 2020, the state has reported a total of 77 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus with 55 continuing to be active. 14 of them have successfully recovered and have been discharged while 8 of them lost their lives battling the virus. Hyderabad alone has 36 cases.
