The Telangana Assembly passed two Bills with a voice vote and without any debate on Thursday increasing the age of superannuation to the State government employees, pension to former legislators and cashless treatment limit for the sitting and former members and their spouses.
The bills passed were – The Telangana Payment of Salaries and Pension and Removal of Disqualifications (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and The Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation) (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
Minister for Finance T. Harish Rao explained that several former legislators had approached the government that the pension they were getting was not sufficient to meet their basic needs. Accordingly, the Bill provides for increasing the minimum pension to ₹50,000 per month from the existing ₹30,000 with an upper limit of ₹70,000 per month.
Further, the limit for cashless treatment of the sitting and former legislators and their spouses was being increased from the present ₹1 lakh to ₹10 lakh a year. The proposal had come from Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao himself as the plight of former legislator C. Baganna from Zaheerabad, who died following illness in NIMS recently, was taken to his notice. An amount of ₹2.5 lakh bills were due at the time of his death.
The government was sanctioning the amount beyond ₹1 lakh limit but it was taking time for correspondence causing inconvenience to the former and sitting legislators and their spouses undergoing treatment in hospitals, Mr. Harish Rao said.
Another Bill passed was to ratify the recent announcement of the Chief Minister to increase in the retirement age of the State government employees to 61 years from 58 years. Mr. Harish Rao stated that the process for filling 50,000 vacancies would be taken up soon so that there is no impact of increase in the retirement age of employees. Promotions are being given at all eligible employees and the posts that would get vacant in the process would be filled, he said.
