The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Move to hike President’s salary opposed

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Tuesday, Jan 29, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Move to hike President’s salary opposed

Staff Reporter

Members of Lok Paritran stage a dharna in Bangalore

They say
Decision taken at a time when the economic condition has not changed much
Public money being unnecessarily spent on MPs and MLAs who do not deliver the goods

BANGALORE: Members of Lok Paritran on Saturday protested against the decision of the Union Government to increase the salary of the President from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 1 lakh.

They said that the decision had been taken at a time when the economic condition of the common man had not changed much.

B.T. Naganna, State president of paritran, said there was disparity in payment of salary among the elected representatives.

While MPs and legislators were getting salary, municipal councillors and panchayat members were not getting it.

Quality work

“How can you expect quality work from councillors when they are not paid salary,” he said.

Paritran member N.V. Krishna Kumar said that each legislator was getting Rs. 1.74 lakh every month as salary and allowances when people were struggling even to get a minimum wage of Rs. 60.

K. Chakrapani said that a large amount of public money was being “unnecessarily” spent on MPs and MLAs, who did not visit their constituencies even to review progress of various development works.

He said that the elected representatives were claiming a large amount of money towards medical expenses when many people were deprived of basic medical facilities. The members of paritran staged a dharna in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi.

The members wanted the President to refuse the hike proposed by the Union Government.

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