Andhra Pradesh energy department staff on duty to get full salary 

VIJAYAWADA: The energy department has decided to pay full salary to its employees who are involved in operations and maintenance of power lines. Energy secretary Nagulapalli Srikant has written a letter to the Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (APTRANSCO) in this regard on Wednesday. 

Citing representations from AP Power Employees Joint Action Committee, the secretary said that the government accorded permission to power utilities to pay 100 per cent salary to employees working in operations and maintenance services, pensioners, and police and security personnel working in power utilities.

He also advised to defer “all non-essential and discretionary payments and adopt cost-cutting measures.”  

The officials later clarified that other employees will get deferred payments in line with the State government’s decision to defer a part of all government employees’ salary in view of fall in revenue due to the lockdown to check the spread of Covid-19.

The government has already taken a decision to give full payments to pensioners for April  (payable in May) and the police, as frontline workers, were already getting entire salary, the officials noted. 

The decision to pay a section of workers their full salary was taken as those involved in operations and maintenance, especially linemen and other field functionaries at sub-station, were working even during the lockdown.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s review meeting on energy sector, scheduled on Wednesday, has been postponed to Friday.