Hyderabad Aug 24 (IANS) 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.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao announced that the salaries will be paid from the treasury with effect from September 1.
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 September 1 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.

--IANS ms/tsb/sed