Ending the long-pending litigation between A.P. and Telangana power utilities, the State government has implemented Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari report by issuing posting orders to the staff relieved from the Telangana power utilities.
As many as 536 employees from Telangana were allotted to the State early this year. Of them, the APGenco accepted 245 employees, while APTransco gave orders to 148 and the Discoms got 143 employees allocated by the one-man committee.
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The division of employees, pending since 2015, ended without any additional financial burden to any of the commercial entities on both the sides. Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari submitted the final report on December 26, 2019, allotting 655 of the 1157 staff unilaterally relieved from Telangana utilities to A.P.
However, the State opposed this and filed a petition in the Supreme Court, stating that the 655 employees were in addition to the threshold limit. “Every employee cannot be individually satisfied when the allocation is being done after six years of State bifurcation,” said a representative of power utilities.
According to the officials, financial neutrality on both the sides was taken as the underlying principle for the bifurcation of assets and the same is given significance in the committee’s reports when it came to allocation of employees.
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Salary and pension
In view of the lockdown and the interim orders of the Supreme Court, both the power utilities paid salaries and pensions to the employees who were on ‘order to serve’.
The APGENCO is to be reimbursed with ₹58.99 crore, the Transco with ₹ 36.83 crore and the Discoms with ₹35.26 crore (total ₹131 crore) by the corresponding Telangana companies towards the difference of the amounts released so far.
Meanwhile, Energy Minister Balineni Srinivas Reddy has said the government is committed to reviving the power sector in the State.