Delhi MLAs' salary, allowances increased from Rs 54,000 to Rs 90,000, AAP govt says still lowest in India

Delhi MLAs will get Rs 90,000 as salary and allowances every month from now on, the first rise in 10 years, with the Arvind Kejriwal government on Tuesday clearing the proposal which was earlier truncated by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

The Delhi government had sought a salary rise of up to Rs 2.1 lakh a month but the MHA limited the rise to Rs 90,000, capping the salary at Rs 30,000 and Rs 60,000 as allowances.

Delhi MLAs will continue to remain among the lowest-paid MLAs, the AAP-led Delhi government said in a statement while pointing out that BJP-ruled and other party-ruled states were paying 1.5 to two times the salary and allowances proposed for Delhi MLAs.

Uttarakhand is paying Rs 1.98L for an MLA per month while for Himachal Pradesh it is Rs 1.9 lakh, Haryana Rs 1.55 lakh, Bihar Rs 1.3 lakh and Rajasthan Rs 1.42 lakh, it said, indicating its unhappiness over the MHA not accepting its proposal.

Delhi government said the MHA "restricted" its proposal and capped MLAs' salary even as the cost of living in Delhi has risen substantially. It said the salaries were not revised since 2011 and the Delhi government requested the MHA that the salary of MLAs be at par with those of other states. However, it refused to accept the request.

While the Delhi Government had proposed a salary of Rs 54,000 at par with other states, the MHA, however allowed only Rs 30,000. Now the salary and allowances — constituency allowance of Rs 25,000, secretarial allowance of Rs 15,000, telephone allowance of Rs 10,000 and conveyance allowance of Rs 10,000 — will add up to Rs 90,000.

The statement said that many states provide other perks and allowances to their MLAs, which the Delhi Government does not provide – like house rent allowance, office rent and staff expenses, allowance for buying office equipment, vehicle for usage and driver allowance, among others.

It said the proposal for increase in salary and allowances of Delhi MLAs was pending with the MHA for the last five years.

In 2015, the Delhi Assembly had passed a bill to increase the MLAs salary by 400 per cent to Rs 2.1 lakh but it could not be implemented as the Lieutenant Governor returned the Bill saying the government did not take his prior clearance. Following this, the Delhi government prepared a fresh proposal and forwarded it to the MHA, but it was cleared only now.