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| While daily wagers get peanuts, lawmakers want Rs 2.5 lakh salary | | Rich sons of poor state! | | Bharat Bhushan
Early Times Report
JAMMU, June 3: Amid the plight of underpaid daily wagers of different government departments most of whom are on the verge of starvation due to their paltry salaries, the lawmakers are demanding three-fold hike in their fat package.
While the daily wagers have been finding it hard to feed their families with a meagre monthly salary of Rs 4,500, the lawmakers, unmindful of their problems and instead of suggesting ways to mitigate their sufferings, have come out with the most unjustifiable proposal of gifting themselves a massive pay hike at taxpayers' expense.
"This can't from any angle be held an appreciable move of the elected public representatives. People have elected them to take up their issues in the legislature and not to demand hefty pay packs which generally corporate houses offer to hire talent," said Girdhari Lal Sharma, a senior citizen from Gandhi Nagar.
It may be mentioned that daily wagers, especially those of PHE department, are on a protest for over a decade or so inside their B C Road office complex here, but the government is unmoved and has so far not bothered to take any decision to regularise them on the plea that due to its bad financial health, it won't be able to bear the additional burden of their 'enhanced' salaries.
If the government ever decides to regularise their services, they may get between Rs 10,000-15,000 per month, but the legislators, who are already getting a hefty monthly salary, have surprisingly set in motion the move to hike their own salaries by three times, totally ignoring the daily rated workers, some of whom are engaged by different government departments for the past over a decade.
MLAs and MLCs in J&K are at present getting a monthly salary of Rs 80,000, besides some perks for visiting their constituencies, and if their demand is accepted, their salaries would touch Rs 2.5 lakh per month.
It is astonishing to find that they have pushed their demand of attractive salary pack at a time when thousands of daily wagers of PHE department and those engaged by the government at Sidhra Golf Course here have not received their monthly emoluments for the past several months. This is strange that instead of suggesting ways to get their salaries released, legislators of all hues, inspite of their political differences, have joined hands to put a pressure on the government to accept their demand of a hike in their own salaries. If approved, it would be the third hike in their salary in the past 10 years.
What is more concerning is that instead of finding out ways and means to make the state self-reliant, they are bent upon putting an extra burden on the state exchequer. By supporting such a proposal of opposition benches, the legislators of ruling partners - BJP and PDP - have for sure put their own government in a state of quandary.
Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti must intervene and stop them from gifting themselves 'loaves and fishes' when majority of daily wagers don't have enough money to make their both ends meet.
The legislators' move is totally unjustified. This is taxpayers' money and Mehbooba must utilise this opportunity to put her foot down and prevent the extravagant proposal from going through. Such hikes have no basis in economic ground realities and are going to be realised at the expense of hapless taxpayer.
In the name of staging walkouts, disrupting assembly and council proceedings and not taking up basic issues of the people, they can't keep gifting themselves massive pay hikes by deciding their own salaries. Their salaries need to be in sync with their output. This way, they would be forced to focus on their performance and work harder for the economic growth of the state and betterment of the people instead of delinking themselves from these vital issues.
They have also demanded more than three-time increase in the constituency development fund to Rs five crore from the current Rs 1.5 crore as well as a raise in the wages of their assistants.
The demand for a hike in the salary of MLCs to Rs 2.5 lakh was raised by Congress MLC G N Monga in the legislative council on May 30 last. His demand was supported even by the ruling party MLCs with the thumping of desks.
It now remains to be seen if the government gives its nod to their demand or adopts a more judicious view to the economic issues one by one to first put the precarious finances of the state in order. It must think of creating income generating projects before putting any extra burden on the state exchequer, or won't it be better to fix salaries of legislators on the basis of their performance? Let J&K legislature be the first to take a lead in this context and set an example for others to follow. |
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