Pay corporators ₹50K a month: SP leader

City corporator and Samajwadi Party group leader Rais Shaikh has demanded that civic corporators be paid a remuneration of Rs50,000 a month, instead of the Rs10,000 they get currently. The demand comes a few months after state legislators got a two-fold salary hike.

In a letter to civic chief Ajoy Mehta, Shaikh said the work corporators put in for citizens should Rs10,000 they get paid now was too low an amount.

He also asked that the travel allowance corporators get to attend general body meetings be increased to Rs500 from the current Rs150.

There are 227 corporators and five nominated corporators in the general body of the BMC.

Even though the civic administration had, in 2012, proposed to hike their remuneration to Rs25,000 — and the general body had approved it it is yet to be

Shaikh said the civic administration had failed to follow up with the state on increasing the salary to Rs25,000 — even though the proposal was approved by the general body five years ago.

As the state is yet to approve the proposal of granting Rs25,000 to corporators, Shaikh has now demanded that the civic administration follows up asking for the amount to be Rs50,000 instead.

“We work a lot in our wards and also spend on stationary or postage purposes Such expenses month,” Shaikh said.

Shaikh said well-educated corporates may choose to become corporators and work for their wards if the BMC offered a better salary.

“But the civic body has not managed to pay us even the Rs25,000 that was approved in 2012. Now, the civic body should raise it to Rs50,000 at least,” he said.

The state government had recently increased the monthly salary of MLAS from Rs75 000 to