Delhi Assembly’s proposal to hike MLA salaries is correcting a historical wrong

Full disclosure: The author works with AAP and the Delhi government on key issues.  

Last week, Members of Legislative Assembly of New Delhi resolved and appealed to the Speaker to increase their salaries with immediate effect, citing personal hardships in not being able to meet even daily expenditure. One MLA remarked, in a lighter vein, that his mother was annoyed with him since no one wanted to marry him owing to his less-than-ideal financial condition.

Thereafter, the Speaker constituted a six-member committee that would take up the matter with the Centre to ensure a quick passage of The Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Government of NCT of Delhi (Salaries, Allowances, Pension) Amendment Bill 2015, which had, in 2015, recommended an increase in the basic salaries of MLAs and ministers, and has been pending with the central government for a long time now.

Like Delhi, multiple states across India, have tried to pass Bills to hike MLA salaries, albeit with varying degrees of success. The usual roadblocks have been myopic media outrage signified by the refrain that it is “a waste of public money” and the worry about public indignation — most people still swear by the time-worn maxim that most, if not all, politicians are venal. Either way, the very notion that the salaries of our MLAs/MPs should be increased is often met with ill-informed vehement and violent backlash.

The fine print

Let us look at the prevailing facts:

1. The basic salary of a Delhi MLA is Rs 12,000 a month. This is Rs 1,350 less than the minimum wage for an unskilled labourer and Rs 4,182 less than the minimum wage for a skilled labourer in Delhi. It is also true that Delhi has one of the highest standards of living and tops almost every price index (WPI, CPI) in India and this makes living in Delhi, on such a measly salary, difficult.

2.  Delhi MLAs, like those of other states, receive a constituency allowance that can be used for setting up and managing the camp office, putting in place a grievance redressal system and so on. Currently, each Delhi MLA receives Rs 18,000 monthly as constituency allowance compared to the constituency allowances in others states: Andhra Pradesh (Rs 1,13,000); Himachal Pradesh (Rs 90,000) and neighbouring Haryana (Rs 60,000). This when renting an office space and its upkeep is extremely expensive in Delhi: the seventh most costly city in the world.

3. Compared to other states, Delhi lies at the lower end of the spectrum on the MLA salary (basic salary + constituency allowance).

Historically, MLAs/MPs end up deciding their salaries and perks themselves — an inherently biased and flawed method. Like Somnath Chatterjee, former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, said: “India is unique. It is the only democracy where judges can appoint judges and MPs/MLAs can decide their own salaries.” However, the Delhi Assembly on August 21, 2015 flipped this notion. Acting on the request of the speaker, it constituted a three-member committee to recommend revisions in the salary and allowances for MLAs. The three-member committee was chaired by constitutional expert, PDT Achary, former secretary-general of Lok Sabha, and had a senior journalist and an eminent jurist as its members.

It was this committee that then recommended that the basic salaries of MLAs be increased from a measly Rs 12,000 per month to Rs 50,000 per month with the provision to increase the salary by Rs 5,000 every 12 months during each term of the Delhi Assembly.

Owing to the unique constitutional status of Delhi, it is mandatory to send any Bill passed in the Delhi Assembly to the central government for ratification and approval. Accordingly, in this case, the recommendations of the above committee were enshrined in The Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Government of NCT of Delhi (Salaries, Allowances, Pension) Amendment Bill 2015 and sent to the central government, which returned it in 2016 citing curable and non-curable queries. Thereafter, with detailed responses to the queries, it was re-sent by the Assembly to the Centre, where it is pending approval for more than two years now, resulting in no hike in the salaries of Delhi’s MLAs.

What next?

MLAs are expected to be on 24×7 duty for the residents of their constituency — from attending public grievances to following up with various government agencies on local constituency projects. Such meagre salaries do not help the cause.

The Delhi Assembly procedure of proposing a hike in the salaries of public representatives is transparent, fair and a model way that should be adopted by other state Assemblies as well. The urgent need of the hour is for the Centre to pass the salary hike Bill and stop delaying this issue owing to political differences with the AAP.