With pay hike, an MP to cost Rs 37L a yearRead more: With pay hike, an MP to cost Rs 37L a year - India - The Times of India https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/With-pay-hike-an-MP-to-cost-Rs-37L-a-year/articleshow/6384362.cms#ixzz0xggKLXjH
NEW DELHI: 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.
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 vario us 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), 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), 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.
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