Our overweight Netas

The cabinet almost unanimously decided that they would not allow an independent committee to decide the salaries of our Members of Parliament. Why would they. After all, giving themselves pay perks is one of the few things that our MPs agree upon at all times. How else would one explain the 26 times they have given themselves a pay rise, compared to the six times that the rest of the suffering government employees have been given a bonus.

So while the Jawans have been begging for a modest pay rise for the past few decades and been disappointed each time, our MP's salaries have jumped almost 25% since 2002. Of course, our Netas have never really cared about our soldiers (or for that matter, anyone else but them), have they?

So how much do our elected representatives earn anyway?

Chacko Joseph has posted a very interesting analysis of how much our great leaders cost us. And the numbers may shock you... After all, these are the very same people who always talk about simplicity, Gandhian ideals, frugality, and talk about their connection with the poor of this nation. Plus, with our Manmohanji's constant bickering for Private sector salaries to reduce, it would be an interesting thing to look at their hypocrisies.

Looks like the Privy purse was not abolished; our leaders commandeered it for themselves. Thats 1300 Crore Rs. per 5 years that we waste on our non-performing leaders.

I have updated the information and made it into an image format.

The Image is small, so click on it to see the full size.

Along with the free tickets, the MPs are further reimbursed money over the ticket cost - for Air Travel (by Business Class of course), they get 25% of the ticket cost, for Rail Travel, its the cost of a second class ticket, and if they travel by steamer, 60% of the ticket cost (for the highest class cabin, of course)

The links on the image are:

• http://www.parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/intro/p8.htm
• http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2977
• http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/13spec.htm