“Aam Admi” may be in deep trouble over rising prices of essential communities, increasing fuel prices and lessening job opportunities. But “achhe din” seems to have arrived for scores of ministers, legislators and former legislators in Bihar. Chief Ninister Nitish Kumar-led NDA Bihar government on Tuesday approved 30 per cent hike in the basic salary of total 318 lawmakers from both Houses of the state legislature. The decision to hike Bihar legislators’ salary was taken at a meeting of the state Cabinet held under the chairmanship of Kumar.
Now, the basic salary of each legislator will be Rs 40,000, from earlier Rs 30,000.
The meeting also increased the annual travel allowance by plane/train to Rs 3 lakh from earlier Rs 2 lakh while the legislators will also entitled for an advance of Rs 15 lakh for buying luxury cars. The meeting further increased their constituency allowance by Rs 5,000 and also approved Rs 10,000 per month to meet their stationary expenses. In addition to that, the state Cabinet hiked the monthly remuneration to be paid to legislators’ personal assistants, from existing Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000.
Not only that, the state Cabinet also made significant hikes in salary, pension and other perks of former legislators. Curiously, none from the Opposition has objected to this salary hike as all the leaders contacted for comments refused to speak.
Earlier in 2014, the JDU government had significantly hiked the salary, pension and other facilities of the chief minister, former chief ministers, ministers and state lawmakers twice.
The acche din for ministers and other politicians of the state had come soon after Jitan Ram Manjhi took charge of the JD-U government in Bihar when his immediate predecessor Kumar resigned owing moral responsibility for his party’s disastrous performance in Lok Sabha polls in 2014.
The first windfall for all the state legislators came when the JD-U government comprehensively enhanced their salary, allowances and pension in June that year.
The meeting chaired by the chief minister approved a hike of around Rs 56,000 in the salary and other allowances of legislators at one stroke, making their salary structure no less attractive than the industry’s CEOs. The government also increased their pension in a bid to provide them more financial security during the time of retirement.
That was not all. The ruling JD-U government also hiked the monthly salary of the chief minister and all its ministers. The government also decided to give lifetime facilities of eight private staffs to all former chief ministers of Bihar, benefitting all the former chief ministers, including Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, Rabri Devi and Jagannath Mishra. Earlier, there was a cap of first five years after relinquishing the office to avail these facilities.
Curiously, the monetary benefits continue to shower on the legislators despite the fact that quite many of them are crorepatis. As per a report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR)~a civil society group working for electoral reforms, of the total 243 members in the current Bihar Assembly, 162 are crorepatis.
Of the 162 MLAs, 14 have assets of over `10 crore, according to the affidavits of the 243 newly-elected with Khagaria’s JD-U MLA Poonam Devi Yadav being the richest.