The Parliamentary Committee on Salary and Allowances will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar to demand that the salary of parliamentarians be ₹1 more than that of the Cabinet Secretary.
The decision was taken at a meeting on January 12.
MPs draw ₹50,000 in basic salary and ₹45,000 in constituency allowance. They are also entitled to a daily allowance of ₹2,000.
In 2015, the committee, then headed by Yogi Adityanath, recommended 100% increase in salary, along with a hike in other allowances. But the government junked the report.
The basic salary for parliamentarians was last hiked in 2010 from ₹16,000 to ₹50,000. After the implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission’s recommendations on January 1, 2016, the Cabinet Secretary, the top-most bureaucrat in the country, gets ₹2.5 lakh a month and a Secretary in the Union government draws ₹2.25 lakh.
“Not all MPs are industrialists, or come from well-to-do families. Many of us are dependent on the salary we get from Parliament,” a committee member said.
“ We make laws, but we are paid less than those who implement the laws made by us,” said a BJP member.
