The Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha passed a bill on Friday to increase salaries of Chief Minister, Ministers, Speaker, Deputy Speaker and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) by 24 percent.
Speaking on the bill, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said , “The hike is linked to the price index, ensuring an automatic increase every five years and bill aims to encourage honesty and clean politics, providing a salary hike for legislators similar to other sections of society.”
The salary of CM has been hiked from Rs 95,000 to Rs 1.15 lakh, Speaker’s from Rs 80,000 to Rs 95,000, Deputy Speaker’s from Rs 75,000 to Rs 92,000, Cabinet Minister’s salary has been increased from Rs 80,000 to Rs 95,000, State Ministers from Rs 78,000 to 93,000, for deputy ministers from Rs 75,000 to Rs 80,000, and for MLAs salary has been increased from Rs 55,000 to Rs 70,000 per month.
The CM said, “Rs 20000 given to MLAs as the telephone allowance, subsidy on water and electricity have been withdrawn.”
He said that Rs 20,000 that MLAs used to get for telephone bills has been abolished. The subsidy on water and electricity has also been withdrawn from all the MLAs.
Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur, ministers Chander Kumar, Harshwardhan Chauhan, Jagat Singh Negi, MLAs Hans Raj, Sanjay Rattan, Rakesh Kalia, IS Gandhi and Vinod Kumar supported the proposed hike,
Both the Congress and BJP legislators welcomed the passing of the bills by thumping their tables.
Very less salary