Corporators to give up month's pay for farm loan waiver

All the 198 BBMP corporators will contribute a month's salary towards the farm loan waiver. Mayor R Sampath Raj will forego two months' salary, while Padmanabha Reddy, the leader of the Opposition, will contribute Rs 1 lakh, besides giving up a month's pay.

The elected representatives gave the pledge after M Shivaraju, the ruling party leader in the BBMP, submitted a proposal at the monthly meeting of the civic body's council on Friday. "One of the ways to help farmers is to donate a month's salary to the state government. This could be our small gesture to relieve the farmers' burden," he said.

The proposal received unanimous acceptance from the corporators. Each corporator is paid Rs 7,500 a month. So, the salaries of 198 corporators add up to Rs 14.85 lakh. The mayor gets Rs 20,000 and the deputy mayor Rs 15,000 every month.

On a lighter note, Yeshwantpur corporator, G K Venkatesh of the Congress, suggested that their salary be increased to Rs 50,000 a month so that they could contribute more to the government.