A VULGAR EXTRAVAGANCE

It is a broad daylight loot, isn’t it? Delhi MLAs are set to get a bonanza at taxpayers’ expense. And what a bonanza it is going to be! Their monthly pay package can bloat to Rs. 2.35 lakhs if the recommendations of a committee are accepted. The committee was constituted by the Aam Aadmi Party Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. It has furnished its final report in less than two months. Notably, the committee was formed after it was let out that Kejriwal was under pressure from his MLAs to raise their pay-packets. He obliged. Should the pay and perks be raised as per the recommendations of the committee, it would make the Delhi MLAs the highest paid in the country. And, mind you, they do not have half the powers legislators of full-fledged states have, Delhi only being a B- category state with key subjects reserved for the Centre. Yet, a four-fold increase in the salary of Delhi MLAs is truly mind-boggling. And, mind you, these are Aam Aadmi Party MLAs. Indeed, of the total 70 MLAs in the Delhi Assembly all but three belong to the AAP. The recommended pay and perks, in fact, are in some respects higher than those currently being paid to the MPs. The new pay would rise from Rs. 12,000 to Rs. 50,000; constituency allowance from Rs. 18,000 to Rs 50,000; secretarial, research, office assistance from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 70,000; communication from Rs. 8,000 to Rs 10,000; conveyance from Rs. 6,000 to Rs 30,000 and the daily sitting allowance when the Assembly is in session from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 2000. Besides, each MLA would get a one-time furnishing allowance of Rs. 1,00,000; Rs 60,000 for purchase of office equipment, and another Rs 1,00,000 for the purchase of laptop, PC, tablet, handset, etc. In addition, each MLA will be entitled to a loan of Rs 12,00,000 for the purchase of a vehicle and can also claim up to Rs 3,00,000 every year towards travel expenses. In short, a veritable loot of the public funds. Given that quite a few MLAs are full-time politicians, and are not otherwise qualified to earn even a fragment of the above package had they not been in politics, given that a number of them are involved in criminal cases, the move to enrich them at taxpayers’ cost is most odious. But, then, contrary to its protestations, the AAP leadership has been in a hurry to bestow goodies one way or the other on its legislators. That Kejriwal appointed as many as 21 parliamentary secretaries and sought to give them office space of their own reflected his desire to keep his brood in clover, even though no other state in the country has had so many parliamentary secretaries. Again, with his desire to keep his MLAs from mischief, he wanted each one of them to be provided offices in government buildings in their respective constituencies. The argument that MLAs need to be paid well since some of them have quit highly lucrative jobs/businesses does not wash. Politics per se ought to be all about voluntary service. It should not be treated like an alternative vocation. Besides, a vast majority of politicians become politicians for want of doing anything better. And then use politics as a gravy train to become rich overnight by misusing public office. Even Kejriwal, a mid-level Indian Revenue Service officer, could not have enjoyed the power and creature comforts that his current job as chief minister provides him and his family. His simple-living, high-thinking pretensions were exposed as hollow when he settled for a big bungalow and ended up charging the taxpayers more than Rs. one lakh towards electricity bill alone for the power consumed at his official residence. Again, it is specious nonsense to suggest that only well-paid legislators can be uncorrupt. The greedy will always make money come what may, regardless of how much they have and how much they can legitimately earn. The value of a true public servant cannot be measured in terms of his pay and perks. The fact that legislators still get paid in multiples of the average income of an aam aadmi ought to be reason enough for them not to go in for a hefty increase in their pay and perks. Hopefully, the Centre would veto any extravagant proposal made by the AAP Government to enrich its MLAs at the cost of their constituents in Delhi.