A high-level committee of experts, headed by former Secretary General Lok Sabha PDT Achary, submitted its recommendations to Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Tuesday.
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The panel has recommended doing away with the current practice of reimbursing domestic electricity and water bills while insisting that MLAs produce receipt to get their office assistance fees of Rs 70,000 reimbursed.
“Two months after a handful of legislators broached the topic in Delhi Assembly, a panel of experts has recommended significant additions to MLAs” salary packages.
“Since 2014, the basic salary of MLAs in Assam is Rs 60,000 per month”.
“The constituency allowance already being paid to MLAs in Goa at present is Rs 90,000, despite the fact that it is a smaller assembly, in terms of membership as well as the population represented by each MLA”.
The one-time allowances of MLAs have also been recommended to be increased significantly with one time “office furnishing” allowance of Rs1 lakh, Rs60,000 for purchasing office equipment and a vehicle loan of Rs12 lakh, which is Rs4 lakh at present.
Overall, the hike recommended has been 138 per cent. “The AAP should decide what their priority is” Is their priority to hike the salary of the MLAs or to tackle dengue, price rise, contractual employee problem and other problems of Delhi” he asked.
Predictably the new recommendation has raised the ire of the opposition groups and other critics.
The BJP too has lashed out at the AAP party stating that, “the pay hike is unreasonable”.
“The government doesn’t have funds to give pension, no funds to give salary to sanitation workers”. As per the current records and estimations no state in the nation is paying or intends to pay the legislators with such a highest salary.
On the contrary another AAP leader and a section of APP MLA’s are against the increase of salaries for the legislators claiming there is rampant poverty in the country and farmers are being driven to suicide which are need to be addressed initially.
But though such arguments have their merits it would still be unfair to tag the salaries and emoluments of legislators to miserably low levels.
“AAP is showing their true colours”. And most of the hike in allowances now recommended would still be inadequate to meet the actual costs MLAs incur on a daily basis.
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“The government will take a reasoned decision after going through each recommendation”, said a government spokesperson.
