New Delhi: The proposed 4-fold hike to Delhi’s lawmakers and ministers will be the highest paid in the nation. The Assembly, on Thursday approved a pay hike that was proposed in October.
Once enacted after clearances from the Home Ministry and the President, Delhi’s lawmakers will be the country’s highest paid, drawing a salary of Rs. 3.2 lakh plus various allowances.
The basic salary of lawmakers, without allowances, will go up from Rs. 12,000 per month to Rs. 50,000, while ministers will get Rs. 80,000 instead of Rs. 20,000 earlier. Allowances too have equally been hiked and will be increased 10 per cent annually.
The salary hike for mostly Aam Aadmi Party lawmakers and ministers had flared a controversy when it was first proposed. Since benefit members of his Aam Aadmi Party most, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal faced a backlash on social media.
The salary hike had been called for by a section of lawmakers in July.
The Committee on Salary on Allowances – which comprised lawmakers – had looked at various states and decided that the salary and allowances in Delhi were “highly inadequate to meet the basic minimum requirements of an honest and performing Legislator”.
The Congress which was no lawmakers in the Assembly and the BJP which holds three seats had opposed the hike.
The last salary revision was in 2011, when the Congress government led by then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit gave itself a 100 per cent hike.
