BSY doles out goodies for MPs

Free petrol to go up from 300 litres to 500 litres

Inaugurating the newly constructed Karnataka Bhavan annexe building here on Thursday, the chief minister said the State government would provide 500 litres of petrol per month for each MP as against the existing 300 litres.

Apart from this, the chief minister announced the construction of a new guest house in Bangalore to provide transit accommodation for state MPs. Many MPs are forced to stay in hotels when they visit the state capital as they do not have their own residence in Bangalore. The guest house will help them to overcome this problem, Yeddyurappa said.

The MPs, mostly from the BJP, who were present at the function, welcomed the announcement with a big applause. Now, each MP is entitled to have a car, an office in the district headquarters, a driver and first and second division clerks at the cost of the State government exchequer.

Besides, the State government also provides cars for them to travel in and around Delhi. This is apart from what the MPs are getting from the Central government as salary or perks and other facilities.

Interestingly, most of the leaders from opposition parties stayed away from the inaugural function. Though Opposition leader in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah was in Karnataka Bhavan, he did not turn up for the function.

Prior to the function, MPs met the chief minister and requested him to hike their fuel quota as well to resolve their accommodation problems in Bangalore. A couple of days ago, when there was a proposal to hike the basic salary of MPs from Rs 16,000 to Rs 60,000 per month, the decision was deferred in the backdrop of the flood and drought situation in several parts of the country.

However, MPs led by Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad heatedly argued in the Lok Sabha that the Centre should immediately hike their salary over and above a Central cadre secretary’s salary, which is around Rs 80,000 per month.