Delhi govt seeks 3-fold hike in salaries of of MLAs, ministers

A meeting of the Delhi Cabinet presided by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit cleared the proposal which will now be sent to Union Home Ministry for approval.

As per the proposal, an MLA who currently gets nearly Rs 32,000 monthly, including all incentives, will get around Rs one lakh while the monthly emolument of a minister will go upto Rs 1,20,000 from current Rs 43,000 a month.

"We have cleared the proposal. We will now be sending it to the Centre for approval," Dikshit said after the Cabinet meeting.

The move comes three months after the Union Home Ministry rejected a similar proposal on the grounds that perks and privileges not even granted to MPs were sought by the Delhi government for its legislators.

Officials said if approved by the Centre, the enhanced salary will put an additional burden of Rs 16.21 crore on the exchequer annually.

In the revised proposal, the government has dropped the demands for petrol allocation to the legislators and for giving interest-free car loans.

The Centre in November last year had rejected the proposal seeking a hike of up to 200 per cent in the monthly salary of MLAs and around 300 per cent increase in the salaries drawn by ministers.

The proposal also seeks 2,000 units of free power for legislators per month, while it has fixed 10,000 kilolitres of water free of charge per month for them.

The government has also sought 20 free trips each through air and rail per year for a legislator to and fro Delhi to anywhere in the country along with a close family member or an official.

Earlier, the Home Ministry had said that as salary of legislators are revised after every five years, so any hike of salary of Delhi legislators could only be considered in 2012 as their salary was hiked in 2007.

The official said the proposal has been prepared as inflation has gone up substantially and all the government officials were given hefty hike in the salaries following the Sixth Pay Commission report.