The Union government finally moved to end the practice of Members of Parliament arrogating salary rises to themselves with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget proposing a law to standardise the salary and provide for an automatic revision every five years by indexing it to inflation.
Follow The Hindu's comprehensive coverage of Budget 2018 here
The salaries of the President of India and the Vice-President have been increased to ₹5 lakh and ₹4 lakh a month respectively so as to rectify an anomaly. The Governors, too, will get a rise in their salaries that were last revised in 2006.
Mr. Jaitley said there had been considerable public debate on the emoluments paid to MPs, and the practice allowing them to fix their own emoluments ran into criticism. “I am, therefore, proposing necessary changes to refix the salary, constituency allowance, office expenses and meeting allowance payable to MPs with effect from April 1, 2018,” he said.
Accordingly, MPs will now draw a basic salary of ₹1,00,000 (up from ₹50,000), The constituency allowance will go up from ₹45,000 to ₹70,000, and the secretarial costs from ₹45,000 to ₹60,000.
