MPs to get 24% salary hike, pension revision

Members of Parliament testament acquire a 24% salary hike up — from ₹1 lakh to ₹1.24 lakh per month — and an enhanced monthlypension of ₹31,000 after the parliamentary affairs ministry on mon issued a gazette notice on the proposed changes.The lawmakers will also get a higher daily allowance of ₹2,500 — as against the earlier rate of ₹2,000 — for attending sessions and committee meetings. A senior Lok Sabha official told HT that the two presiding officers —Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla — will soon meet to increase MPs’ constituency allowance, furniture allowance and office expenses.This is the first salary hike for Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs after then finance minister Arun Jaitley in 2018proposed a new, inflation-linked mechanism to hike salaries and allowances of lawmakers in Parliament.The new salary structure will be effective from April 1, 2023.While this is the first salary hike since 2018, all MPs voluntarily reduced their salary by ₹30,000 (30%) in 2020 when the country was battling the Covid-19 pandemic. A bill to that effect was unanimously passed in Parliament. The fund which used the savings from the salary cuts was used for Covid-related work.The pension for former members has been revised from ₹25,000 to ₹31,000, the government also announced on Monday. A parliamentary committee had made the recommendation to increase the remuneration for lawmakers taking into account the rising living expenses and inflation. While Indian MPs manage among the largest and most populous constituency, they are among the more poorly paid lawmakers, when compared to many advanced economies. An Inter-Parliamentary Union report in 2012 showed that Indian MPs are lowest-paid when compared to Brazil, US, UK, Russia, Germany and France, among others, on a purchasing power parity basis.According to the notification issued by the ministry of parliamentary affairs the daily allowance, paid to lawmakers during Parliament sessions and for official duties, has also been increased from ₹2,000 to ₹2,500 per day. The revision was approved by the Lok Sabha Secretariat and will be implemented with effect from April 1, 2023 on the basis of the Cost Inflation Index. The additional pension for every year of service in excess of five years has been increased from ₹2,000 per month to ₹2,500 per month. The salary increase has been notified in exercise of the powers granted under the Salary, Allowances and Pension of Members of Parliament Act on the basis of the Cost Inflation Index specified in the Income Tax Act of 1961. In 2018, the government announced a mechanism to fix salaries for members of Parliament that would allow automatic revision of emoluments every five years indexed to inflation The latest hike is a result of this plan. According to officials, the proposed changes were planned in 2023 and will be implemented now.In 2015, a parliamentary panel had sought a 100% hike in salary and daily allowances of MPs and a 75% increase in pension of former MPs apart from facilities for their “companions” in place of “spouses”. That panel, headed by then Gorakhpur MPYogi Adityanath, had sought to double the monthly emoluments and increase the pension of former parliamentarians from ₹20,000 to ₹35,000 while hiking the daily allowance from ₹2,000 for attending Parliament sessions to ₹4,000. According to the proposals that Birla and Dhankhar will discuss, the MPs’ constituency allowance may be raised from the current ₹70,000 to ₹87,000. The office expense allocation may also rise by ₹15,000 to ₹65,000and the monthly ceiling of furniture will increase by ₹25,000 to ₹1.25 lakh.Reacting to the news, Samajwadi Party MP Anand Bhadauria said, “This is a normal process which is conducted at a regular period. However, considering the inflation, this I feel is not enough.”BJP lawmaker Malvika Devi says, “I am glad that our salaries have been increased, but I would have been happier had our funds for MPLADS (MP Local Area Development Scheme) been increased as well.”