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And so the Indian MPs are clamoring for a pay hike from the current 16,000 rupee salary to 50,000, and perhaps even 80,000.
There is an indecency about all this for a variety of reasons.
1. If performance related pay is anything to go by, Indian MPs notorious for being absent on the job, pursuing other careers and interests certainly don't deserve such a significant pay rise. The toiling masses of India aren't getting their value for their money as far as the MP's are concerned.
2. A good percentage of MPs are crooks on the run from the Law who only entered politics because there is a perception that by being MP's it will put them above the law........beyond the reach of the law. As many cases have shown they would be right.....well known high criminals become ministers even. Crooks giving themselves a massive pay rise does not sound quite..."Shining India"......it sounds more like banana republic opportunism, grasping and blatant corruption....sort of thing you'd find in the USA, and Haiti.
3. On the one hand you have ALL these initiatives by Sonia et al to be more humble, frugal and less extravagant, flying economy class as she did, staying in budget hotels.......missing out on the 15 course meals at trendy restaurants for free, so that the ruling elite can show that they are with the aam admi, spiritually and physically......BUT NOW she says a massive pay hike for MP's is perfectly acceptable. Where is the consistency in all this?
4. There are 840 million Indians living on 20 rupees a day, and one meal a day consisting of white rice and nothing else........in such a nation where near 80% of the population live in abject poverty, how dare these criminals as MP's award themselves such a huge pay hike. On what moral basis do they award themselves such a huge pay hike? Excellent service of elevating the masses for the nation?
5. To be an MP in India is to like a huge business opportunity. As a person of power influencing contracts, and spending money for the state, and finally lobbying for various groups, one can if one so desire make huge amounts of money as an Indian MP. Indeed many MP's of humble background have subsequently become croreputis. Their salary is not their sole income, or even their main income......if it were they would never be elected. So given this huge off the books income, why this public display of greed all of a sudden?
Pay hikes are fine in an increasingly affluent country, where the shackles of Socialism are shed finally into awarding people a more realistic pay which reflects their real worth. I am therefore happy to see pay rises of 20% or even 30% annually and incrementally for DESERVING GROUPS.
On the other hand if the pay of the average soldier was hiked to 20,000 rupees; Police constable 20,000 rupees; average government workers to 12,000 rupees.........that would be a wonderful method of greater income distribution in a nation of stark income differentiation which WILL ultimately effect the long term steady growth of India. A few people getting rich will merely move their surplus income to Swiss, and other off shore accounts as is the current fashion, AND thus will in no way help the long term Savings/growth ratio that India must and can achieve. If greater numbers of people in India have the ability to earn above subsistence levels of income, which are then later saved in Indian banking institutions then this will generate the future 10% growth that is much touted.
In that sense criminal politicians awarding themselves massive pay rises sets a bad president, and is an example of poor leadership for a group of people who are never short on cash......otherwise they wouldn't have been elected in the first place. Then why not award railway workers 500 pay hikes, or employees in state enterprises, or the babus all across the board?
An excellent article from TOI posted below
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With pay hike, an MP to cost Rs 37L a year
By Atul Thakur, TNN
Not satisfied with a three-fold hike in their basic salary, many MPs stalled Parliament proceedings on Friday, saying that the "low" hike was an insult to the country's legislators. But do these MPs have a case? TOI did some calculations to help our MPs do a reality check on how their pay packet compares with countries around the world.
In comparison with legislators from the developed world, Indian MPs may appear to be poorly paid when we compare basic salaries at normal forex rates. However, this can be misleading.
(The classic problem of many Third World nations where real income of government, and of course private individuals are hidden off the books, which thus becomes a nightmare for tax assessment)
It's well known that basic salary is only a small part of the overall compensation given to an MP. Hence we did some calculations to get a rough estimate of the overall cost of an MP to his or her country by finding out the approximate monetary values of various perks and allowances. Converting this into international dollars in terms of purchasing power parity (the same benchmark that makes India the world's fourth largest economy...$15 trillion USA, $10 trillion China, $4.5 trillion Japan...$3.8 trillion India),
..........it works out that Indian MPs cost more to the country than their counterparts in Singapore, Japan and Italy — nations globally known for their highly paid politicians.
Without including accommodation, travel, medical facilities and water charges, and taking 151 Parliament session days (from June 1, 2009 to June 1, 2010) as the annual average, it works out that the new salaries and allowances (constituency allowance, office, telephone, internet, furniture, electricity, daily allowances) given to an MP is worth more than Rs 20 lakh annually.
Now, consider the accommodation provided free or at nominal rates to MPs at some of the most upscale localities in the country — places like Lodhi Estate, Aurangzeb Road, Tughlak Lane, Akbar Road and Ferozeshah Road in Lutyens Delhi — where rent for a two or three BHK flat can go up to Rs 2 lakh a month. We can safely assume that an MP living at these places gets an additional perk of Rs 1 lakh per month by way of saving rent.
To calculate the average cost of air travel of an MP, we considered Kolkata as a point of reference (some constituencies may be farther or nearer) and assumed that an MP travels by Air India booking the ticket one week in advance. By that count, the 34 single air journeys that each MP is entitled to in a year, costs Rs 5 lakh. This brings an MP's compensation to more than Rs 37 lakh annually.
When converted to PPP dollars, each MP's pay and perks work out to 2.2 lakh PPP dollars — higher than the salary plus perks of MPs in Singapore (2.1 lakh) Japan (1.9 lakh) and Italy (1.9 lakh). In comparison, the cost to country of an MP in Pakistan — at 46,000 PPP dollars — makes legislators in that country appear positively poor.
There's another way of looking at the pay packets of our MPs — by comparing it with the people they claim to represent. India's per capita GDP being $ 3,176 (PPP....2009), it works out that after the hikes our MPs will cost the country 68 times more than what an average Indian earns annually. That makes the disparity in India between the citizen's average income and an MP's cost to country, among the highest in the world. Kenya is an example of an even higher disparity, with its MPs earning 180 times the average population. The ratio is 35 for the US while for most of western Europe and Japan, the cost of an MP doesn't exceed 10 times the country's per capita income.
