Amidst threat from the government employees, who are scheduled to start a protest programme from March 9, the state government had decided to clear all dues of the employees by March end.

A joint meeting of the employees and the cabinet subcommittee, which met at the Velagapudi secretariat on Tuesday resolved to dissolve the pending issue of arrears to be paid to the employees.

Ministers Buggana Rajendranadh, Botsa Satyanarayana, Adimulapu Suresh and government advisor, Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy met the representatives of the employees unions. They discussed the pending issues raised by the employees unions.

The employees representatives told the cabinet subcommittee that arrears to be paid to the employees are pending for several months. The arrears are in different forms and wanted the government to clear them at the earliest.

The government representatives told the employees that they would clear the payment by March 31. The total arrears amount to Rs 3,000 crore and it would be cleared by the month-end, government advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy told the meeting.

Payment of arrears was one of the key demands of the employees. Employees Joint Action Committee-Amaravati chairman Bopparaju Venkateswarlu had already told the government to set the deadline for payment of arrears. Accordingly, the government, after the talks, set the new deadline and asked the employees to withdraw their agitational programme.

It is not known whether the employees are satisfied with the promise and would withdraw their agitation starting from March 9 or would go ahead as the government accepted only one demand from their charter of demands.