HYDERABAD: To establish a good precedent, the Union Cabinet has taken a decision that NDA MPs will not take salary and allowance for 23 days of the current Budget session since the Lok Sabha was not functional, but there is now a demand from some quarters that those who did not attend the House regularly and did not participate in the debate also should not get salary and allowance. Political circles feel that NDA MPs made a good move. Some MPs have been drawing their salaries and allowance without attending the House regularly, by not participating in any debate and not asking any questions in the last four years. A demand has been raised that the activities of these MPs should be noted.
If a member does not attend the House, he will lose only Rs 2,000 daily allowance but this will not affect his salary and other allowances. According to Lok Sabha data, Indian tax payers paid nearly Rs 177 crore through salary and other allowances to 545 Lok Sabha MPs in 2015-16 Financial Year. Expressing anguish over the stalemate in Lok Sabha since March 5, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on March 20 to implement ‘No work-No pay’ to MPs.
Inspired by Manoj Tiwari’s suggestion, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday took a decision that all MPs of NDA alliance parties will not draw salary and allowance for 23 days of the current Budget Session. In fact, Biju Janata Dal MP Jay Panda had taken a similar decision on his own long ago. In 2016, Jay Panda announced that he would forego part of his November and December salary due to interruptions in the Lok Sabha. The House did not transact any business in that Session.
On December 18, 2016, Panda said: “I have been doing this for several years now. I think since four or five years, at the end of every Session, I have been returning part of my salary and daily allowance in the same proportion as time gets lost in the Lok Sabha due to disruptions.” But no other MP had followed Mr Panda’s path till now. During each Session, each MP will be paid '2,000 as daily allowance. Whether the MP attends the House or not, once he signs in the register, he will get the daily allowance. Sometimes some MPs just sign in the register for the purpose of daily allowance and goes back without attending the House.
MPs were elected by the people as their representatives to voice their problems in the House. But some MPs did not express their opinion once in the last four years. To keep a check on such MPs, now there is a demand to cut their salary and allowance for not contributing towards any work in the House.
