Gujarat MLAs to get Rs 1.16 lakh salary a month
Gandhinagar, Sep 20 : Cutting across party lines, the Gujarat legislators on Wednesday unanimously passed a bill in the State Assembly proposing to hike their salaries by at least Rs 45,000 a month with retrospective effect from February this year.
Accordingly, the monthly salary of the MLAs will be increased to Rs 1.16 lakh from the existing Rs 70,727, a rise of about 64 per cent, while those of the Ministers, Speaker, Deputy Speaker and Leader of Opposition will go up to Rs 1.32 lakh from Rs 86,000, an increase of about 54 per cent.
The revised salaries come into retrospective effect from February with a disbursal of Rs 6 crore in arrears. The new remuneration structure will put an extra burden of Rs 10 crore annually on the state exchequer.
Minister of State for Home and Parliamentary Affairs Pradeepsinh Jadeja, who introduced the Bill in the House, justified the hike stating that the salaries of lawmakers in most other states was much more than those in Gujarat where the last increase came 13 years ago in 2005.
Opposition Congress MLAs also did not hesitate from supporting the salary revision. "What is wrong in that? When everybody's salaries have been raised, why should there be a problem if our pay is hiked? We too have to look after our children and run our homes," asserted Congress legislator Niranjan Patel. He went a step further to demand that the lawmakers be compensated for the "unbearable fuel prices hike".
Congress Chief Whip in the Assembly Ashwin Kotwal said the Congress supported it because the salaries were last revised 13 years ago.
Firebrand Independent Dalit MLA Jignesh Mewani said: "It is obvious...every legislator, including myself, is glad. But I have a rider, what about salaries of ASHA workers and Anganwadi workers as well as mid-day meal and contractual sanitation workers? I will bring a private member bill about this in the next session of the Assembly."
After tabling the Salaries and Allowances of Members, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly, Ministers and Leader of Opposition Laws (Amendment) Bill 2018, Jadeja informed the House that the salary of MLAs in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly had not been revised since 2005, while the remuneration of their counterparts in other states was comparatively much higher.
For instance, the salaries of legislators in states like Uttarakhand, Telangana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra were Rs 2.91 lakh, Rs 2.50 lakh, Rs 2.25 lakh and Rs 2.13 lakh, respectively.
It is only in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Odisha that the salaries of lawmakers are just over Rs 1 lakh, comparable to the remuneration the Gujarat MLAs would now get.
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Kudupu mob lynching: Victim’s brother asks Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao to ensure probe is unbiased
Mangaluru: District In-charge Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao was handed a memorandum by Jabbar, brother of Ashraf who was allegedly lynched by a group of men in Kudupu near the city recently, requesting for justice to the family by ensuring the investigation is conducted in an unbiased manner.
The victim, Pulpalli Ashraf, a native of Wayanad in Kerala, was reportedly assaulted and lynched by a group of men playing cricket in Kudupu on April 27.
In his memorandum to the minister, Jabbar has said that several loopholes were found in the investigation conducted so far by the police in relation to the case. “The matter has been reported by media houses too. The police officials have not followed the procedure while filing the FIR and also in certain aspects of the investigation. Although the investigation officer and two constables have been suspended for the shortfalls, replacements have not been provided,” Jabbar pointed out and pressed for the immediate appointment of an unbiased and efficient officer to handle the case.
He also requested for an immediate announcement of legal compensation to the families of victims of mob lynching cases.
Jabbar further referred to the Supreme Court judgment in the Tehseen Poonawalla case that mob lynching cases should be handled by Fast Track Courts, and asked for a Fast Track Court to hear Ashraf’s case.
He said that this was the first case of mob lynching reported in Karnataka since the implementation of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) 2023. Jabbar demanded the immediate appointment of a Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) for this case and legal authorities to follow the apex court’s directives without fail to prevent recurrence of such incidents.
