Teachers are taxed, but look at what babus, MPs get

Above a certain level, bureaucrats are allowed a free phone at home, and this is not added to their incomes. Actually, they are supposed to get only 640 calls free, but all that you do is to certify that the calls are official.

For a payment of Rs 100 a month, bureaucrats above the rank of joint secretary are allowed to get a car to pick them up from home and drop them back. Again, this is not taxable. And, if you’re a secretary, all you have to do is to pay Rs 400 per month, and be eligible to get the car for personal use. Given the normal kind of travel, that’s a perk of at least a few thousand rupees a month being subsidised at Rs 400 a month. And, no, they don’t get taxed on it either.

Members of Parliament have an even cushier lifestyle. They get eight return tickets from their constituency to Delhi by air each year — this is called an `intermittent allowance’. Both the MP and spouse get a return ticket to Delhi at the beginning and end of a Parliament session. Housing is free, as are medical facilities at the Parliament annexe; they get 1,00,000 free telephone calls a year — these free calls can be made from any of the three free phones the MPs are entitled to in the country. Another Rs 6,000 is paid to them per month to hire a secretary, and that’s tax free as well — in fact, most of the allowances for MPs are tax free.

Needless to say, the freebies aren’t restricted to bureaucrats and the MPs alone. Employees of the Indian Railways or those in Indian Airlines also get free air tickets, and thanks to telecom minister Ram Vilas Paswan, telecom employees are all set to get free telephones and airtime.