Praveen Prakash, Prl Secretary in AP, asks not to pay his salary until Aayahs, cooks are paid

AMARAVATI: In a very noble move, Praveen Prakash, the principal secretary to the government of Andhra Pradesh, wrote to K. CH. Venkateshwarlu, the assistant secretary and drawing and disbursing officer(DDO), requested him to process the salary of the appointed ayahs and cooks on time. He added that until the salaries of the cooks and Ayahs were credited, he didn't want his own paycheck to be cleared.

Praveen Prakash believes that Ayahs and Kitchen staff are the backbone of the two pillars of School Education, primarily for Nutrition and Infrastructure. He said that in order to provide a transparent and timely method of providing the honorarium, the government had created a mechanism in which the amount of the bill is automatically paid to the beneficiary's account after the bill processing is completed. The monthly bill preparation has also been automated, and like any good system, the Maker, Checker, and Approver modules are in place.

According to Praveen Prakash, the government has established timetables for the uploading of bills at each level from time to time (at school level, mandal level, district level). If the deadline is not followed at any stage in this chain, the Chefs and Ayahs would not receive their salaries paid on time. Since the system is robust, any delay in updating the bill at any level results in a 30-day payment delay.

He also emphasized that sensitization at all levels (schools, Mandal, District, etc.) is required to ensure that all Ayahs and Chefs receive salaries in the same format as government employees.

In a letter to K. CH. Venkateshwarlu, the assistant secretary and drawing and disbursing officer(DDO) he wrote, "I had requested the Director MDM to give a monthly report that includes whether or not all of the Ayahs and Chefs have been paid",

Every month I will forward the Compliance report to you, after the receipt of the letter of Director MDM. Please process the bill for the payment of my salary of each month, only after the payment of the salary of all the Ayahs and Cooks is completed for that month. Under no circumstance, you should process the bill of my salary without getting the compliance report from me, stating that the salaries of 88,296 cooks and 46,661 ayahs have been credited to their account".

He said, "This practice will come into effect from this month, from March salary, which is due to me in April. I will only draw the salary after the Ayahs and Cooks salary has been duly paid".