Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 4: You wouldn't find this anywhere in India except in Jammu and Kashmir, where an MLA is drawing Rs 50,000 more salary than that of the state Governor.
As per official documents, Governor Satya Pal Malik is drawing a monthly salary of Rs 1.10 lakh, while an MLA or an MLC of the state legislature is drawing Rs 50,000 more, that is, Rs 160,000.
Besides getting 100 percent hike in their salaries, the Travelling Allowance of the legislators was raised in the year 2017 to Rs 2 lakhs and their sitting fee enhanced to Rs 2000 per sitting. The car and housing loan amounts in respect of the legislators is also being hiked.
The salaries of the MLAs and MLCs were hiked by 100% in July 2016 from Rs 80,000 to Rs 160,000. According to the salary bill for gazetted officers of the Jammu and Kashmir government, a legislator gets Rs 60,000 as basic salary, Rs 60,000 as CCA (Constituency Allowance), Rs 30,000 as telephone expenditure and Rs 10,000 as Medical Allowance (MA) which amounts to total gross salary as Rs 160,000.
On the other hand, for the Governor of the state, the salary is Rs 50,000 less than the legislators. In other states, the salary of the Governor is around Rs 3.50 lakh per month.
"Where would you find such unnatural style of functioning that a Governor is given peanuts and a legislator gets bonanza? Not only is the salary component the issue, see how much peoples' money is spent on the accommodation, transportation and luxury of the legislators," says an official of the Finance department.
Interestingly, according to the government records, an amount of Rs 958.67 lacs was spent in last five years as expenditure borne by the Estate department on accommodation including ministerial bungalows; it includes Rs. 137.02 lacs (2010-11), Rs. 232.72 lacs (2011-2012), Rs. 190.97 lacs (2012-2013), Rs. 215.64 lacs (2013-2014) & Rs. 182.32 lacs (2014-2015). The Estates department however said that the records of Deputy Director Estates Srinagar/Executive Engineer Estate Division Srinagar were washed away in the floods.
In reply to another question on year-wise expenditure borne on manpower, fuel and hotel accommodation for the last five years, the Home department in its reply has earlier stated that Rs. 507 Cr (decimal fixed) were spent by the government in last five years.
According to information available with Early Times, the government in last five years spent Rs. 20.85 Cr on rent of hotel accommodation, Rs. 26.43 Cr on fuel charges, Rs. 309.5 Cr on salary of 'guard nafri' and Rs. 150 Cr on account of salary of PSOs attached with these protected persons. Thus the total expenditure on the security of these 1472 (categorized 803 and un-categorized 699) protected is Rs. 5163378545.60 in last five years which mean that Rs. 35.07 lacs (Approximately 7 lacs/year) were spent on an average on each protected person.
Srinagar district with 207 protected persons tops the list of number of protected persons, followed by Jammu with 191,Doda 173, Baramulla 98, Kupwara 82, Anantnag 114. Samba is at the bottom with 13 protected persons followed by Leh with 15 and Kargil with 16 protected persons. |
