The government employees of Andhra Pradesh, who will be working from the state’s new capital Amaravati, will be offered flexible schedules like five working days a week and the liberty to work from home for a few hours.
This is being done to encourage them to start work in Amaravati from June and leave Hyderabad, the present common capital between AP and Telangana.
A Cabinet panel on the employees’ shifting approved this proposal on Saturday.
However, the flexible working hours will not be applicable to government employees working in other places of Andhra Pradesh. The AP government has begun the construction of four towers spanning an area of around 10 lakh sq feet.
The government hopes to complete the township by June when the state administrative departments are to be shifted to Amaravati. The secretariat and some key units will be accommodated in the new township.
Around 22,000 employees of AP, now working in the secretariat, and 55 heads of department in Hyderabad will have to shift to Amaravati in Guntur district by 6 June.
But the employees are opposing the order on the ground that their families are based in Hyderabad and it will be difficult to move to a “green field capital” in such a short time.
The Cabinet committee, which is holding talks with the staff, has offered the flexible work schedule to persuade employees to move to Hyderabad.
Municipal Minister P. Narayana, who led the Cabinet panel, told this newspaper that Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has consented to this proposal.
Besides that, the employees will also be paid 30% HRA (house rent allowance) on par with what they get now in Hyderabad.
This decision has been taken to compensate the staff for their travel to Hyderabad to spend weekends with families.
The AP Secretariat employees’ association has agreed to these proposals but wants some administrative sanctions to allow them to work from home for five hours per week.
They want online facilities to log in for work and authentication for the files uploaded and the guarantee that the work done from home is treated as that of the office.
“We can understand the compulsions of the staff working from Amaravati. They will be considered for extra perks like leaves, etc. The government is accommodating their demands as we want to provide administration to the people of Andhra Pradesh from the new capital,” Narayana told this paper.
AP has also increased the retirement age of government staff from 58 to 60 years in the hope they will cooperate with the government.