Parliamentary Committee Recommends Hike In MPs Allowances: Final Decision On July 13
02 July, New Delhi
A Parliamentary Committee on salaries, Allowances and Pension has drawn up eight recommendations to marginally increase allowances for the members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
The Committee headed by BJP member Yogi Adityanath, did not recommend any hike in the basic salary of the sitting members or pension of the ex-members, but considered recommendation for hike in perks like DA allowance, staff allowance, stationary allowance and others were made.
Yogi Adityanath talking to media in Gorakhpur today denied any recommendations for increasing the salary of the MPs. He said the media report about hefty hike in the salary of the MPs is not correct. The BJP MP, however, did not mention about the allowances.
The recommendations were made on June 13 when the committee met in which UP’s Rajya Sabha member Satish Chandra Mishra of the BSP and Pramod Tiwari of the Congress are its members.
The final meeting of the Committee before the Parliamentary session is proposed on July 13 when the final draft of the recommendations would be approved.
Sources said the recommendations include increase of the daily allowances during session from Rs 2,000 per day to Rs 3,000 per day, while the monthly allowances for servant and Personal Assistant(PA) should be increased to Rs 45,000 from Rs 30,000 at present.
“A recommendation was also made to provide additional air ticket on weekly basis to the members during the session between his constituency and Delhi. At Present, a member gets just one air ticket during his session besides 34 additional tickets in a year,” the sources added.
The committee has also recommended that only companion word should be used for a member using train ticket of other person. At present the married members were given tickets for their spouse and unmarried or widower gets for their companion.
The committee has rejected the demand for ex-MP for air ticket along with hike in their pension.
Demand for free air ticket to ex-MP’s was made specifically from region of Leh and Andaman where there is no train connectivity.
Meanwhile, Congress Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari talking to UNI here today said no such hefty pay hike has been recommended by the committee.
Tiwari defended the necessity for a pay hike for Parliamentarians. Though he refused to ‘officially share details’ of the committee’s recommendations, he justified the need to do, saying presently MPs get a salary of around Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000. Allowances should not be considered as salary.
He also defended the necessity to increase free air tickets for sitting MP’s. Claims that a very few MP’s are in that financial capacity as to bear the huge expenses of their stay in Delhi and those related to his discharging of duties as a parliamentarian.
Refusing to give details of the recommendations as he is the member of the committee, Tiwari said as a Parliament member he demands hike in the MPLAD fund which is Rs 5 crore per member.
“How can a member distribute Rs five crore in his constituency when in states like Andhra Pradesh are eight MLAs in one Lok Sabha seat while in Goa here are 20 MLAs in one LS seat,” he said, while adding that development in the MPs constituency under the MPLAD is not doing any good