Assam assembly passes Bills to hike salaries of MLAs

Assam assembly today unanimously passed three Bills to increase salaries of all lawmakers by up to 50 per cent without a single amendment.

Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami said usually the Amenities and Facilities Committee recommends revision of salaries of the MLAs, but this is the first time the pays were revised by a Pay Committee headed by former chief secretary P P Varma.

As per the three Acts, the salaries of the Assembly Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chief Minister, all Ministers, Leader of the Opposition, other lawmakers and pension of former MLAs have been increased with effect from April 1.

The salaries of the speaker and the deputy speaker will be raised to Rs 1.2 lakh and Rs 1 lakh per month from the existing Rs 80,000 and Rs 75,000, an increase of 50 per cent and 33.33 per cent respectively.

Besides the salary component, both will get Rs 30,000 as parliamentary assistance and sumptuary allowances, according to one of three Acts.

For the chief Minister, the salary will go up to Rs 1.3 lakh from Rs 90,000, while his allowances for the two categories will become Rs 34,000 from Rs 17,000. So his total take away would be Rs 1.64 lakh every month.

For the cabinet ministers and the leader of the opposition, the salary has been proposed to be raised to Rs 1.1 lakh from Rs 80,000 at present, while the allowances have been doubled to Rs 30,000 from Rs 15,000.

A minister of state will now get a salary of Rs 1 lakh compared to the existing Rs 75,000, while also drawing an additional Rs 28,000 as parliamentary assistance and sumptuary allowances as against Rs 14,000 a month.

A deputy minister's salary will become Rs 95,000 in place of Rs 70,000 and the allowances will increase to Rs 26,000 from Rs 13,000, the Act said.

The salaries of all MLAs were hiked in a separate Act to Rs 80,000 from the existing Rs 60,000 per month, while doubling allowances for constituency, camp office and secretariat to Rs 40,000.

In addition to the above emoluments, all of them will get other allowances under categories such as assembly sitting and travel among others, besides other non-cash benefits.

For an ex-MLA, the government announced a pension of Rs 40,000 per month compared to Rs 30,000 along with a hike in medical allowances to Rs 20,000 from Rs 12,000.

Besides, the Act also said, "The widow/widower of any ex-member shall be paid family pension at the rate of 50 per cent of the pension amount drawn by the ex-member and shall also be paid medical allowance at the rate of Rs 20,000 per mensem.