Covid-19: Telangana govt announces up to 75% salary cuts for its employees

In a high-level review meeting conducted in the wake of the state's financial situation amid coronavirus outbreak, the Telangana government on Monday decided a huge pay cut for its employees ranging from 10 per cent to 75 per cent.
The meeting was held at Pragathi Bhavan in view of the state's economic situation which has been affected adversely due to the coronavirus scare. It was decided that there will be a 75 per cent cut in the salaries of the Chief Minister, state cabinet, MLCs, MLAs, state corporation chairpersons, and local bodies representatives.

Whereas, there will be a 60 per cent salary cut of IAS, IPS IFS and other such central services officers and for all other category of employees, there will be 50 per cent salary cut.
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For the Class IV outsourcing and contract employees, there will be 10 per cent cut in the salary while for all category of pensioners there will be 50 per cent cut.
There will be a 10 per cent cut in the salary for the Class IV retired employees and for all the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), Institutions employees, that are receiving the government grants, there will be cut in their salaries as well. There are 71 confirmed coronavirus (Covid-19) cases in the state, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the death toll due to Covid-19 has risen to 32 and the number of total coronavirus cases reached 1,251 on Monday. There are 1,117 active cases in the country, said Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

A Happy New Year for farmers in Telangana with 24X7 power supply from today

The Telangana government ushered in the New Year on Monday by gifting the farmers 24-hour free power supply for agricultural purposes.
"Telangana - the only state in the country to achieve this distinction in power sector to end the despair of farmers," the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) government said today in newspaper advertisements about the previously announced plans.

As many as 23 lakh agricultural pump sets would be provided free power from December 31 midnight, the government had said last month.
The initiative would push the overall power demand to 11,000 MW by March this year.
"By spending Rs 12,610 crore in setting up new power lines, transformers and sub-stations, the state power utilities have made elaborate arrangements for power supply," the government had earlier said.
In the advertisements published today, the government said at the time of the formation of Telangana (in June 2014), the state had to confront severe power crisis, two-day power holiday to industry, six to eight hours cut to all categories of consumers and an erratic six-hour supply to farmers.
"During the last three-and-a-half years, the power sector has crossed several milestones and achieved tremendous success in generation, transmission and distribution," it said.
The installed power capacity has grown from 6,573 MW as on June 2, 2014 to 14,913 MW as on today with an "ultimate capacity of 28,000 MW in the near future", the government said.