Hyderabad: Some teachers, lecturers and other government employees are drawing salaries for years without going to schools, colleges or offices under the guise of “union activities”.

The state government extends “other duty facility” (OD) to union leaders (president and general secretary) round the year, and around 20 unions that are either recognised or unrecognised are enjoying this benefit.

The benefit had been extended purely on political grounds to employees’ unions in the undivided AP since employees comprise a major vote bank and play a crucial role in deciding the fate of parties in elections. The Telangana government is also continuing the same. Prior to 2007, when the concept of Teacher MLCs and Graduate MLCs was not there, the idea behind extending the OD facility was to give an opportunity for these union leaders to bring issues of government employees to the notice of the government.

A senior official of GAD said, “Why should the government need union leaders now when there are six MLCs exclusively to take up employees’, teachers’ and job aspirants’ issues? This is a complete waste of public money as they draw salaries every month without attending duties.”

Like the CM, ministers and bureaucrats, they come to the Secretariat almost every day, sit in their chambers, lobby for clearance of various pending files, especially with regard to transfer of employees, permissions for setting up and shifting of colleges, schools etc., withdrawal of departmental inquiry/ suspension/ dismissal orders against erring employees etc.

The “union leader” tag gives them access to all ministers and officials including CMO officials; and those who want to get their work done approach these union leaders who take up the task, but for a price which is often in thousands and lakhs, depending on the requirement.

Not only state-level union leaders, even district-level leaders enjoy the benefit. They get additional 22 casual leaves every year besides OD facility whenever they visit state headquarters to attend union meetings. To avail the OD facility, several union leaders have split to form their own unions and become presidents and general secretaries.

With this, multiple unions have came up for primary teachers, high school teachers, principals, lecturers, junior lecturers, degree lecturers, Class IV employees, NGOs etc. For teachers alone, there are over 20 unions.

Normally, the state government constitutes a Joint Staff Council to decide which union is eligible or which is not for OD facility. However, the TS government is yet to constitute the council and in its absence the extension is being given to all unions that had availed the benefit in the undivided state.

While all the schools, colleges and government departments are facing severe shortage of staff, these employees, under the guise of union activities, are skipping duties and drawing enhanced salaries and other emoluments every month like regular employees.

The government had recently enhanced basic pay by 43 per cent, besides DA, to all its staff.