Soon after becoming Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in May 2019, YS Jaganmohan Reddy introduced ‘reverse tendering process’ arguing that it will end corruption in all the contracts awarded by the state government to the contractors. Though the ‘reverse tenders’ has not ended corruption in AP governement’s tenders, Jagan became popular as ‘reverse tenders CM’ in the country.

Now, Jagan is becoming popular as ‘reverse salaries CM’ after he issued two shocking GOs (government orders) on Monday night.

Jagan issued GOs extending 23 per cent fitment (hike on basic pay) to state government employees as promised. However, he shocked employees with his decision to cut HRA (house rent allowance) sharply.

Normally, a pay hike should result in increased salaries for employees. But Jagan’s pay hike resulted in reduction of salaries.

The PRC commission has recommended 14 per cent fitment while the employees demanded over 50 per cent fitment. After several rounds of consultation with employees unions, Jagan fixed 23 per cent and claimed that he gave more than what PRC commission had recommended.

But after seeing GOs, employees realised that they will get only 14 per cent fitment as recommended by PRC commission after taking into consideration the steep reduction in HRA effected by Jagan.

All these days, AP employees were getting salary with 27 per cent fitment. Now they will get 14 per cent fitment.

Employees realised that Jagan gave fitment with one hand and took away with another hand by lowering HRA. They will now have to take ‘reverse salaries’ which means lower salary than what they are drawing till date.