The pay scale of a government sweeper ranges between ₹19,000 to ₹58,500 across various departments and could go up to ₹1,000 including allowances and other benefits. | Photo credit: NAGARA GOPAL
Chief Secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao’s comment about senior sweepers in power distribution companies reportedly earning ₹2,000 per month as monthly salary quickly gained traction on various platforms and drew shocked reactions from people.
On several platforms, garish headlines about ‘Telangana sweepers’ earning ₹2,000 have led to incorrect assumptions that all government sweepers are paid handsomely.
Data from budget allocations show that assumption could not be further from the truth. The pay scale of a government sweeper ranges between ₹19,000 to ₹58,500 across various departments and could go up to ₹1,000 including allowances and other benefits.
However, most departments have moved to the practice of outsourcing jobs involving unskilled labor such as sweepers, which has reduced the number of sweepers across the board.
For example, in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, which has a maximum workforce of sweepers or sanitation workers, their number on actual GHMC rolls does not exceed about 900. A total of 18,357 sanitation workers are hired through outsourcing agencies at a salary of about ₹18,000 per month. They get ₹ 3,000 less in hand after provident fund and ESI contribution and this figure has not changed for several years now. Since gig jobs offer more than this, many workers are now not interested in being a municipal sweeper, which has an impact on the sanitation of the city.
“In the entire GHMC, only 3,600 employees work regularly across departments and they also include jobs like bill collectors and tax inspectors. The salary of a regular sanitation worker could reach a maximum of ₹70,000 to ₹80,000 at the time of retirement,” said Udhari Gopal, president, Greater Employer Union Hyderabad.
GHMC officials informed that the maximum salary a sanitation worker gets in a regular job is around ₹96,000-1,02,000 by the time he retires. Mr. Gopal says the workers can see a six-figure salary only if they are promoted as Sanitation Jawans.
While Mr. Ramakrishna Rao also talked about chief engineers in power discoms being paid up to ₹ 7 lakh, many people are not surprised.
In both cases, the salaries of sweepers and engineers in the energy companies are not paid from the government coffers. The Electricity Board underwent reforms long before the partition of the state and split into power generation, transmission and distribution companies. They operate as independent public sector entities in terms of revenue generation and expenditure, and therefore employee wages are paid from the revenues of the respective companies.
Even in the case of GHMC, the company pays the wages of external workers from its general funds. They are not drawn from the state treasury.
Published – 27 Feb 2026 23:27 IST
