Ahead of a crucial assembly election, the Chhattisgarh government took initiative to please former MLAs. The government got an amendment bill passed in the assembly that proposed to increase the pension and travel allowance of former legislators on Wednesday.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ravindra Choubey had tabled the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly Members Salary, Allowance and Pension (Amendment) Bill 2023 on Monday, which was taken up for discussion on Wednesday.
That bill also proposes to provide telephone and orderly allowances to former MLAs. It was passed with a voice vote. According to the bill, the pension of former MLAs will be increased from Rs 35,000 to Rs 58,300.
Apart from this, every former legislator will also be entitled to get an additional pension of Rs 1,000 per month for every one year after his/her first tenure of membership (excess tenure more than five years), the bill stated.
As per the bill, each incumbent member will be entitled to get an allowance of Rs 10 lakh per year for railway/air travel instead of the existing Rs 8 lakh per year. Similarly, this allowance will be increased from Rs 4 lakh per year to Rs 5 lakh per year for former MLAs, it said.
Besides this, former MLAs will be entitled to get telephone allowance and orderly allowance of Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively, it stated.
According to officials, earlier there was no provision of telephone and orderly allowances for former legislators. The increase in pension and allowances is likely to put an additional annual burden of around Rs 16.
96 crore on the state exchequer, they said.
The state Assembly had passed bills to hike the salaries of the chief minister, speaker, ministers and MLAs in July last year, and the move had caused an annual burden of Rs 6.81 crore to the state exchequer.
The Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly has 90 members.
(With PTI input)
