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Journalism of Courage
Even as the debate over a parliamentary committee’s proposal for increasing the salaries of Members of Parliament rages, former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has said the issue should be addressed by an independent pay commission exclusively meant for MPs.
The 15-member Joint Committee on Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament, headed by BJP MP from Gorakhpur, Yogi Adityanath, is seized of proposals for increasing the salaries of MPs by 100 per cent — from Rs 50,000 a month to Rs 1 lakh — and the pension by 75 per cent — from Rs 20,000 to Rs 35,000.
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Another proposal seeks to increase the daily allowance for attending the House during Parliament sessions from
Rs 2,000 to Rs 4000. There is a suggestion for extending health-care benefits to families of MPs.
The salaries were last revised in 2010. If the proposed hike is put in place this year, the next revision will be carried out after another five years.
“I hold the view that MPs should not be deciding their own salaries because it sullies their image,” Chatterjee said, adding that there should be an independent mechanism to do so.
Chatterjee told The Indian Express that “after I became Lok Sabha Speaker, I had called a meeting of all parties on the issue and they agreed with my proposal that there should be a separate pay commission for MPs. Thereafter, I sent a note to the then PM (Manmohan Singh) accordingly saying that let it be done in a manner that nobody can raise a question about the MPs’ role in it.”
The then PM, according to him, praised the proposal and said that “the entire arrangement needs being institutionalised.” However, Chatterjee said, ultimately, the Cabinet did not agree to his suggestion. “Obviously, they (members of the Cabinet) did not want to annoy the MPs,” he said.
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