Governor CV Ananda Bose approved two Bills in connection of salary of the ministers in Mamata Banerjee cabinet and MLAs within 24 hours since the Bills were not cleared by himself in the state Legislative Assembly on Monday. A one-day special session in the Assembly was called on Monday to discuss the two bills. But the session was adjourned because Mr Bose did not sign the Bills.
Sources at Raj Bhavan said, state secretariat Nabanna has already been informed about the governor’s green signal on salary enhancement of the legislators.
The cash-strapped state government had decided to increase the monthly salary of its ministers and MLAs at a time when around 10 lakh employees are fighting lega battles demanding a hike in their dearness allowance (DA).
The chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced her government’s decision to increase the salary of her cabinet colleagues and legislatures on 7 September while addressing the last day of the monsoon session in the Assembly. “As compared with legislatures in other states, MLAs in Bengal will get a monthly hike of Rs 40,000 each in their allowance. MLAs in our state get the lowest amount of allowance in the country. Salary of a MLA will shoot up to Rs 50,000 from existing Rs 10,000 per month. A minister of state (MoS) will get Rs 50,900. The existing salary of MoS is Rs 10,900,” Miss Banerjee had announced.
“As a former MP and chief minister I don’t take any salary and allowance,” she had claimed in the Assembly.
With her announcement, cabinet ministers, ministers of state and MLAs will get a hike of Rs 40,000 each. Apart from the monthly salary, a minister-in-charge gets around Rs 1.10 lakh, inc- luding several other allowances and parks while it’s Rs 81,000 for a MLA.
The two Bills — The West Bengal Legislative Assembly Bill, 2017 and The West Bengal Salaries and Allowance (Amendment) Bill, 2017 have recently been passed.