Telangana pays highest salaries to govt employees; junior lineman’s ₹52,000 entry level salary increases to ₹1.91 lakh after 2 decades

Telangana holds the distinction of being the State where the Government employees get the highest salaries even as it braces up for the challenging task of considering the recommendations of the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) headed by retired bureaucrat N. Siva Sankar.

Salaries on par with Central Govt scale

The State is on a par with the Central Government, implementing a minimum basic salary of ₹19,000 for the new entrants into the lowest cadre and the amount significantly grows along with the number of years of service put in by the respective employees. The staff at the lowest level in government departments get a salary of ₹50,000 at the entry level. This is much higher in power utilities where the lowest cadre, like junior linemen, draws a salary of over ₹52,000 at the entry level, and around ₹1.91 lakhs for those with service of more than two decades.

Reason for high salaries

The high salaries are on account of the implementation of the previous PRC headed by retired bureaucrat C.R. Biswal. The State Government is incurring huge expenditure on payment of salaries/wages and pensions to the staff at different levels every month.

21% of Telangana’s revenue expenditure on salaries & pensions

According to provisional figures submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the State Government’s expenditure on account of salaries and pensions (committed expenditure) till January this fiscal [2025-26] has gone up to ₹55,575 crore (₹39,858 crore salaries and ₹15,717 crore pensions) constituting 21.09% of the revenue expenditure with two more months to go for the completion of the fiscal year.

Expenditure on salaries to rise further

Coupled with the interest payment, constituting another key area of the committed expenditure, the outgo from the State exchequer accounts to over 40% of the revenue expenditure. This is likely to rise further owing to the recruitments made to vacant posts in different departments in the last two years.

Power dept employees salaries higher

The salaries of the employees of the power utilities Generation and Transmission Corporations and Distribution Companies are much higher as compared with the State Government staff. For instance, the monthly basic salary for a junior lineman in the Transmission Corporation of Telangana starts from ₹24,340 and that of higher grade officers of the rank of superintendent engineers and chief engineers is around ₹1.12 lakh indicating the huge difference in the pay scales of staff of the State Government departments and power utilities.

Five instalments of DA due

The Government is due to pay five instalments of the dearness allowance to employees which will be factored in in the calculation and fixation of the revised pay scales amid rising demand from the employees’ unions to expeditiously release the DA instalments. The PRC would fix the fitment factor, the unit used in revising base salaries/pensions after merging the existing quantum of DA with basic salary.

The then Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Government announced fitment of 43% based on the recommendations of the Pay Commission constituted in the erstwhile united State [Andhra Pradesh] while the quantum was brought down to 30% in the implementation of the Biswal Commission recommendations. Given this background, the recommendations of the next PRC are sure to impose a huge burden on the State exchequer as the quantum of hike suggested will have a bearing on the State’s revenue expenditure. The Government had already awarded five per cent interim relief to the employees ahead of the implementation of the PRC recommendations and it will be interesting to see the quantum of fitment benefit it will announce in view of the tight fiscal situation facing the State.

Telangana’s expenditure on wages and salaries