Our Members of Parliament (MP) (and state legislators as well) want to be called honourable, though they do not eschew the things they supposed to do. They are covetous and not beyond robbing the state till. What else can you call the sanctioning for themselves 100% rise in their salaries. But first the facts.
MPs can look forward to a hefty hike in their salaries, which are likely to shoot up over an unprecedented 100 per cent. The current salary of a member, including perks, comes to about Rs.42,000 per month and the government is hiking it to a minimum of Rs.80,000.
Charandas Mahant, MP, who is heading a committee formed last year to go into MPs salaries and allowances, has discussed the proposal with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The Mahant committee has said since MPs’ positions are higher in protocol compared to government secretaries, they should get more pay than the latter. At present the secretary gets around Rs.80,000 besides 47 per cent Dearness Allowance which together come to Rs.1.2 lakh per month on average. The panel is said to have argued that the government should enhance the salaries of MPs to more than Rs.1.2 lakh or at least more than Rs.80,000 that the secretary gets without DA.
At present, a member gets a salary of Rs.16,000, Rs.20,000 as constituency allowance and Rs.6,000 towards stationary allowance. He/she also gets up to Rs.14,000 towards staff but this amount directly goes to the bank account of the staff. Other perks include free travel on both Indian Railway and business class by air, constituency allowance, daily allowance for signing the parliament roster, free electricity, phone etc. As regards travel, they can make 34 trips to Delhi from their constituencies apart from those for attending meetings. As regards train travel there is no restriction. They are entitled to travel on the highest class along with their spouse besides a companion who can travel second class AC.
The increase in salary amounts to robbing the state treasury because the MPs have voted it for themselves. For the babus the increase in salaries is recommended by periodically appointed pay commissions and are examined and decided by the government. There are two levels of checks and balances when salaries are decided for babus. In the case of MPs, they decide it for themselves This is bad in principle and gives a bad example for the rest of citizens.
Apart from the principle and example angles, MPs don’t deserve any rise if the work they do (or don’t do) is considered. As The Times of India editorially commented, “Our MPs clearly don’t deserve a salary hike. Any pay rise should be linked to performance. But the track record of Indian MPs in the recent past has been poor, to say the least. They have neglected one of their basic duties – crafting and debating legislation. The figures of business conducted in Parliament speak for themselves. The number of sittings of the Lok Sabha has come down from a yearly average of 124 in the first decade of 1952-61 to 81 between 1992-2001, a decline of 32 per cent. For the same period, the decline of Rajya Sabha was 20 per cent. This has had direct impact on the number of Bills passed by Parliament. The annual average of the number of Bills passed has come down from 68 in the first decade to 50 between 1992-2001. This hasn’t got any better in the past few sessions of Parliament. The government could only get six of the 27 planned Bills for the Budget session passed.”
I saw the latest news about Parliament suggestion to give 3G phones to all MPs at http://www.dinamalar.com/News_Detail.asp?Id=37280. What an idea sirji..? They can rise petrol and diesel prices and they can cover the ass of ambani's and mittals. Why should MPs think about that..? Their intention is all about how to fill their bank account with lump some money. Below are few things listed where our MPs aren't thinking about finding solution.
* Bhopal gas tragedy
* Naxalites problem
* Kashmir communal issues
* Coal mine problem in many states
Forget about MPs, think about the media and their duties. I am so happy about the behavior of fourth pillar of indian democracy - media last week. Why should they are caring about all above mentioned issues when they have high profile Dhoni's marriage coverage.? Why should they want to think about people issues. Their only aim is give coverage proportion to fill film stars interviews/cricketer's function. It was ashamed that Headlines Today put flash news about "I hate Love storys" review. Cum'on .. we have more issues to talk or address about.
