Is Your MP Underpaid?
Ashok Sawhney
Sharing an interesting blog by Pritish Nandy from TOI.
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Is your MP underpaid?
By Pritish Nandy, 22 August 2010, TOI/Blogs 10:01 AM IST
I was
a MP not very long ago. I loved those six years. Everyone called me sir, not
because of my age but because I was a MP. And even though I never travelled
anywhere by train during those years, I revelled in the fact that I could have
gone anywhere I liked, on any train, first class with a bogey reserved for my
family. Whenever I flew, there were always people around to pick up my baggage,
not because I was travelling business class but because I was a MP. And yes,
whenever I wrote to any Government officer to help someone in need, it was done.
No, not because I was a journalist but because I was a MP.
The job
had many perquisites, apart from the tax free wage of Rs 4,000. Then the wages
were suddenly quadrupled to Rs 16,000, with office expenses of Rs 20,000 and a
constituency allowance of Rs 20,000 thrown in. I could borrow interest free
money to buy a car, get my petrol paid, make as many free phone calls as I
wanted. My home came free. So did the furniture, the electricity, the water, the
gardeners, the plants. There were also allowances to wash curtains and sofa
covers and a rather funny allowance of Rs 1,000 per day to attend Parliament,
which I always thought was a MP's job in the first place! And, O yes, we also
got Rs 1 crore a year (now enhanced to Rs 2 crore) to spend on our
constituencies. More enterprising MPs enjoyed many more perquisites best left to
your imagination. While I was embarrassed being vastly overpaid for the job I
was doing, they kept demanding more.
Today, out of 543 MPs in Lok
Sabha, 315 are crorepatis. That's 60%. 43 out of the 54 newly elected Rajya
Sabha MPs are also millionaires. Their average declared assets are over Rs 25
crore each. That's an awfully wealthy lot of people in whose hands we have
vested out destiny. The assets of your average Lok Sabha MP have grown from Rs
1.86 crore in the last house to Rs 5.33 crore. That's 200% more. And, as we all
know, not all our MPs are known to always declare all their assets. Much of
these exist in a colour not recognised by our tax laws. That's fine, I guess.
Being a MP gives you certain immunities, not all of them meant to be discussed
in a public forum.
If you think it pays to be in the ruling party,
you are dead right: 7 out of 10 MPs from the Congress are crorepatis. The BJP
have 5. MPs from some of the smaller parties like SAD, TRS and JD (Secular) are
all crorepatis while the NCP, DMK, RLD, BSP, Shiv Sena, National Conference and
Samajwadi Party have more crorepatis than the 60% average. Only the CPM and the
Trinamool, the two Bengal based parties, don't field crorepatis. The CPM has
1crorepati out of 16 MPs; the Trinamool has 7 out of 19. This shows in the
state-wise average. West Bengal and Kerala have few crorepati MPs while Punjab
and Delhi have only crorepati MPs and Haryana narrowly misses out on this
distinction with one MP, poor guy, who's not a crorepati.
Do MPs
become richer in office? Sure they do. Statistics show that the average assets
of 304 MPs who contested in 2004 and then re-contested last year grew 300%. And,
yes, we're only talking about declared assets here. But then, we can't complain.
We are the ones who vote for the rich. Over 33% of those with assets above Rs 5
crore won the last elections while 99.5% of those with assets below Rs 10 lakhs
lost! Apart from West Bengal and the North East, every other state voted for
crorepati MPs. Haryana grabbed first place with its average MP worth Rs 18
crore. Andhra is not far behind at 16.
But no, this is not enough
for our MPs. It's not enough that they are rich, infinitely richer than those
who they represent, and every term makes them even richer. It's not enough that
they openly perpetuate their families in power. It's not enough that all their
vulgar indulgences and more are paid for by you and me through back breaking
taxes. It's not enough that the number of days they actually work in Parliament
are barely 60 in a year. The rest of the time goes in squabbling and ranting.
Now they want a 500% pay hike and perquisites quadrupled. The Government, to buy
peace, has already agreed to a 300% raise but that's not good enough for our
MPs. They want more, much more.
And no, I'm not even mentioning
that 150 MPs elected last year have criminal cases against them, with 73
serious, very serious cases ranging from rape to murder. Do you really think
these people deserve to earn 104 times what the average Indian earns?
Source:
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/extraordinaryissue/entry/is-your-mp-underpaid