Last week witnessed remarkably unusual scenes in Parliament
when MPs, usually fighting for myriad logical and illogical issues,
brought the House down demanding a fourfold hike in their own
salaries to
80,001, a rupee higher than the highest paid government
officer. Rejecting the government's offer to raise salaries from
16,000 now to
50,000 along with doubling of most of the present
allowances, the MPs said that the government had "insulted" Parliament
by rejecting the recommendation of the all-party joint parliamentary
committee to this effect.
In terms of already sanctioned hikes, MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya
Sabha, totalling 787, would be getting, apart from salaries,
2,000
per day allowance when Parliament is in session,
40,000 a month
each for constituency and office allowance,
20,000 a month pension
benefits, 1.5 lakh free phone calls a month,
20 a km road travel
allowance,
5 lakh interest-free loan for vehicle purchase, and
1.25 lakh a month in free air and rail travel benefits. Given the intensity
of demonstration, the government is quite likely to concede to the
demand for increased salaries also. This would make the hike in total
emoluments for the poor, developing country's top lawmakers the
sharpest, perhaps anywhere in the world.
We would like to examine the demand for emolument hike from two
angles: One, whether MPs need this much money, and two, whether
they deserve it. In this context, according to reports, nearly three-fifths
of 543 present Lok Sabha members are crorepatis with average
declared assets amounting to around
5 crore. There were only
17 members who had assets of less than
10 lakh. Taking assets to
be equivalent to incomes and assuming that these reflect honest declarations,
our Sansad members belong to top 10 per cent or so of
income earners in the country. The question is, does this segment
that has vowed to work for the deprived need this, especially when
inefficiencies, corruption etc. in government also reflects tacit support
and apathy of MPs? Their demand for emolument hikes can be
justified only if we want to make the political business progress into
the most paying profession in the country.
On merit, we would point out statistics which say that more than 117
hours or over 30 per cent of the total scheduled 385 hours were lost
during the 2010 budget session of Parliament due to frequent disruptions
and protests, while on eight days of the 32-day long session,
the Lok Sabha met for less than an hour. Such a feat would bring down
any business organisation in the country. When the country aims to
race to the top in the world, can this behaviour from our highest law
policy makers’ body be tolerated? In fact, such unruly and unionised
action would have earned sack orders for the members involved in
competitively run business organisations.
Thus, we may bear the additional outgo provided the MPs agree to
the "pay for work" norm with accountability, where any absence or disruption
of Parliament proceedings due to walkouts etc., will attract
penal provisions like commensurate cuts in their emoluments.
The question that remains unanswered is: Will the MPs agree to
some self-discipline and improved conduct that will earn them society's
wholehearted endorsement of sky-high emoluments which,
presently, seem unjustified?