The Hindu : Front Page : Windfall for legislators

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Wednesday, Mar 30, 2011
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Windfall for legislators

Special Correspondent

GOODIES:Staff members of MLAs with the gifts outside the Assembly on Tuesday.

HYDERABAD: The legislators gave themselves a windfall in terms of massive salary hike while various government departments showered them with gifts as a tradition on the last day of the 45-day-long budget session on Tuesday.

The Finance Department presented each Member of the Legislative Assembly and the Council with an I-Phone-cum-PC Tablet worth Rs.32,000, the Legislature Department gave a Sony Vaio laptop and a HP printer (Rs.45,000), Housing Department a strolley bag (Rs.5,000), Transport Department (through APSRTC) a Samsonite strolley (Rs.9,000), Major Industries Department Titan wrist watches (Rs.5,000) and Forest Department (Girijan Cooperative Corporation) two boxes of forest produce.

This bonanza is estimated to have cost the departments over Rs.3.69 crore as there are 385 legislators, including 90 MLCs, while the cumulative cost of the presents is worth over Rs.96,000.

When the Assembly passed the A.P. Payment of Salaries and Pension and Removal of Disqualifications (Amendement) Bill, 2011, by a voice vote (without any debate) on Tuesday, the legislators' monthly emoluments went up to Rs.95,000, up from Rs.40,000 earlier. This includes a salary of just Rs.12,000, but also a constituency allowance of Rs.83,000.

Further, each member will get free railway travel coupons for a maximum distance of 70,000 km (30,000 km earlier) per annum. The pension of former legislators was also hiked to a minimum of Rs.15,000 a month though the maximum has been pegged at Rs.25,000. All the hikes will come into effect retrospectively from January 1, this year. The budget session had several firsts to its credit as all the demands were guillotined without debate. For instance, the all-important Appropriation Bills were passed on the final day without debate while all the budget demands were guillotined. This followed a heated engagement between the Opposition and the government on whether to discuss the land allotment controversy or the Appropriation Bills.

Another first was the TRS MLAs snatching the papers from the Governor during his joint address to the Legislature, the assault by a Minister (Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy) on a TDP MLA and the attack on Lok Satta member N. Jayaprakash Narayan at the media point.

TRS members boycotted almost the entire budget session of the Assembly, TDP MLAs from Telangana kept away for the most part while Congress MLAs from the region also stayed away for some days.

There was hardly any time for the listed agenda, including Question Hour, throughout the session as the time was consumed in stalling the proceedings and adjournments, first on Telangana issue and later on the land allotment.

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