Telangana priests to get salaries at par with govt employees, but imams to receive Rs 5,000 monthly

Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Friday announced that priests at Hindu temples in the state will be paid salaries at par with government employees while ‘imams’ and muezzins at mosques will be paid Rs 5,000 each. [caption id=“attachment_4527411” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao. News18[/caption] Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced that the salaries will be paid from the treasury with effect from 1 September. As and when pay revision is implemented for government employees, the same will be made applicable to the ‘archakas’ also. ‘Archakas’ perform ‘pooja’ at Hindu temples and come under the endowment department purview. Rao said that their retirement age will be 65 instead of 58 at present. The chief minister said that ‘imams’ and muezzins too will get Rs 5,000 monthly remuneration from 1 September, benefiting nearly 9,000 of them. The Telangana government was earlier paying Rs 1,000 per month to them, which was later increased to Rs 1,500. The chief minister also announced that free electricity up to 101 units per month will be supplied to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for domestic consumption, up from 50 units at present. Telangana govt to give salaries to priests at par with government employees, imams to receive Rs 5,000 Telangana govt priests to get salaries at par with government staff