Hyderabad,  In a New Year gift, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday decided to enhance salaries of all the government employees, increase the age of superannuation and to fill vacancies in all the government departments.

He announced that the salary hike would benefit government employees, Grant-in Aid employees, work charged employees, daily wages employees, both full time and part time contingent employees, Home Guards, Anganwadi workers, contract employees, outsourcing employees, Asha workers, vidya volunteers, SERP (Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty) employees, people receiving the honorariums and pensioners.

All category of employees put together would be 9,36,976 and the salary hike would be extended for all these employees, the CM said. If need be, the financial burden on the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) due to salary hike would be borne by the state government, he added.

KCR also announced that besides the salary hike, increasing the age for retirement, giving promotions, effecting the transfers, formulation of simplified service rules, giving all the benefits on the day of the retirement to the employees and bidding them a respectful farewell, making appointments on compassionate grounds, and all other employee related matters would be solved by the end of February.

He also declared that recruitment policy after identifying all the vacant posts in the government would be done from February. To study all these issues and to have discussions with the employees' unions, he appointed a committee headed by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar.

The committee in January first week will study the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) report. In the second week of January, the committee will have a meeting with the employees' unions. It will advise the government on salary revision to be made and the increase in the retirement age, service rules, policy promotion, strategy to overcome the legal problems for implementing the zonal system and other related issues.

Later, the state cabinet would meet and take the final decision on the panel's recommendations.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, said the government had decided to hike the salaries to the extent possible based on its financial condition.

He said the employees deserve a befitting and respectable farewell when they relinquish the job. "Retiring employee on the day of retirement, whether he is Class IV of a head of the department, they should be felicitated on that day. They should be dropped to their houses in the government vehicle. They should get all the retirement benefits on the day of their retirement," he directed the officials.