Member of the Legislative Council Pakalapati Raghu Varma on November 15 (Wednesday) accused the YSR Congress (YSRCP) government in the State of being indifferent to the problems of its employees.
Addressing a large crowd of teachers protesting at Dharna Chowk in response to a call given by the leaders of Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Federation (APTF), Mr. Varma said that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy did not treat the government employees and teachers as part of the government and claimed that no efforts were made to address and resolve their issues.
The federation’s State president Chennupati Manjula said that the government had to pay arrears worth more than ₹3,000 crores to its employees under different heads. This included payment of arrears pertaining to the 11th PRC, arrears of dearness allowance pending for 149 months and payment of the leave encashment to the employees.
She also found fault with what she called “unscientific methodologies” adopted by the Principal Secretary, School Education Praveen Prakash and said that his regular inspections and extreme reactions were part of the efforts to divert attention from the real issues.
The federation’s State general secretary K. Bhanu Murthy alleged that the government had converted the school education sector into a ‘laboratory’ and the experiments carried out by it were proving to be disastrous and said that as a result, 7 lakh students had migrated from government schools to private educational institutions. He also opposed implementation of GO 117 and said that schools would be shut down because of this order.
The federation’s former general secretary P. Pandugranga Varaprasad urged leaders of employees associations to join forces and staged joint protests. The leaders also demanded restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) as promised by the CM at the time of the elections. They said that a large number of employees had voted for the YSRCP thinking that it would do away with the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) and bring back the old system.
APNGOs Association leader A. Vidyasagar said that unlike the past, when employees protested demanding payment of DA, now they had to resort to protest for payment of timely salaries to them. Teachers from 26 districts across the State participated in the protest.
