Why 200% salary hike for Odisha MLAs could set an uneasy national benchmark

With lawmakers in Bhubaneswar self-appraising salaries amid public backlash, Ramani Ranjan Mohapatra explains how these are fixed, and why Odisha's move matters

Last week, as teachers and ASHA workers protested outside the Odisha Assembly demanding higher pay, legislators inside passed a Bill that sought to more than treble their own salaries, drawing sharp criticism from civil society. 

The Bill proposes to hike the monthly take-home pay of members of the legislative assembly (MLAs), including allowances, to about ₹3.45 lakh from ₹1.1 lakh. That would make Odisha’s MLAs the best-paid in the country, roughly equivalent to the combined monthly pay of legislators in Kerala, Punjab, Sikkim and Goa and more than double the per capita income of a dozen states. Their basic monthly pay would increase to about ₹90,000 from ₹35,000; former MLAs are slated to receive a monthly pension of over ₹1.20 lakh. 

Passed unanimously on the final day of the winter session on December 10, the Bill met no opposition, besides the absence of the lone CPI(M) MLA, whose party cited low minimum wages for workers in the state. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Mahaling said the hike, after an eight-year gap, factored in inflation. In a letter to Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, Opposition leader Naveen Patnaik said he would forgo the hike in his salary and allowances “for the welfare of the poor people of our state”. 

Several states — including Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan and Delhi — have either constituted committees or floated proposals to raise legislators’ salaries. Some, like Goa, have refrained from increasing pay but have expanded perks and allowances. Odisha’s decision, experts said, could nonetheless set a benchmark for these states. 

In terms of MLA salaries, Odisha is followed by Telangana (about ₹2.7 lakh), Maharashtra (₹2.6 lakh), Manipur (₹2.5 lakh), and Uttar Pradesh (₹2.4 lakh). While MLAs in nine Assemblies earn more than ₹2 lakh a month, salaries range between ₹1 lakh and ₹2 lakh in 17 states and fall below ₹1 lakh in six. Kerala MLAs draw about ₹70,000 a month, the lowest in the country, followed by Punjab (₹84,000) and Sikkim, Goa and Delhi, all slightly below ₹1 lakh. 

The contrast with incomes is stark. Odisha’s per capita income is about ₹1.6 lakh, just above the national average but low in state rankings. Sikkim, the richest state with per capita income of about ₹5.8 lakh, pays its MLAs around ₹90,000. Goa and Delhi, ranked second and third, also sit near the bottom on MLA pay, while poorer states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar pay relatively high salaries to legislators. 

MLAs vote on Bills that raise their own salaries, usually after a committee’s recommendations. Beyond basic pay, they receive allowances for office and constituency expenses, free housing, travel concessions and daily allowances for attending sittings.

 

At the national level, salaries of MPs were raised by 24 per cent in March, taking monthly remuneration to about ₹1.24 lakh from April 1, 2023. This followed changes introduced in the Finance Act, 2018, which linked MPs’ pay to inflation via the Cost Inflation Index and mandated five-yearly revisions. 

A July 2024 NITI Aayog working paper, Viksit Bharat: Unshackling job creators, empowering growth drivers, authored by Arvind Virmani, noted that “of 10 occupation categories, real wages and salary of workers have increased only for legislators (MPs, MLAs, etc) and plant & machinery workers in the past six years”. 

Former Lok Sabha secretary P D T Achary said there is no uniform or binding criterion for MLA salaries. “Each Assembly, like Parliament, has the authority to fix the salaries of its own members. Typically, there is little opposition and such revisions are passed unanimously,” he said, adding that regional economic conditions and broader salary structures should be considered.

Shumsher K Sheriff, former secretary-general of the Rajya Sabha, agreed. “MLAs are within their rights to revise pay structures. The key issue is whether the committee concerned is reasonable and ensures that salaries are not exorbitant and are indexed to something real,” he said.

 

Trilochan Sastry, founder-member and chairman of the Asso­ciation for Democratic Reforms, pointed to the inherent conflict of interest. “Teachers’ salaries are decided by others, not by teachers themselves. Legislator salaries should similarly be determined by an informed, independent body.” 

Sheriff noted that in countries such as Australia, Britain and New Zealand, independent bodies determine legislator salaries. In the UK, salaries are revised annually in line with average public-sector earnings; Australia and New Zealand follow similar mechanisms. In France, lawmakers’ salaries are indexed to civil servants’ pay.

 

Prasanna Mishra, retired bureaucrat and Odisha-based columnist, called for a uniform salary structure for MLAs across India, with standard revisions every 10 years on the lines of the pay commission system. He argued that the practice of multiple pensions should be scrapped. “An MLA is entitled to a pension for every term served, which is irrational. There should be a single pension, irrespective of how many times a person has represented the people in the House.”