What does a Parliamentarian cost taxpayer?
ABOUT 540 new Members of Parliament are to take oath as the Central Legislators of the country. What do these Hon'ble Members get from the taxpayer for having consented to serve them? Here are some of the facilities for bearing the burden of representing the people in Parliament.
A Member of Parliament is entitled for a salary of Rs. 50,000 per month. Additionally he gets a constituency allowance of Rs. 45,000. He also gets an office expense allowance of Rs. 45,000.
He gets a daily allowance of Rs. 2,000 whenever he is attending parliament or a committee. He need not actually attend the proceedings - all that is required is he has to sign the attendance register.
When he travels to attend the parliament or any other business as a Member he is entitled to a travelling allowance of 125% of the airfare.
He is entitled to a First Class AC train ticket to travel anytime by any train anywhere in India -spouse included.
He is entitled to a rent free accommodation in Delhi. He gets a free telephone each in his constituency and Delhi with 50,000 free calls a year. He also gets two mobile phones with national roaming facility - free.
He gets medical facilities as are available to senior officers of the Government.
Not really much - to keep democracy running - after all each one represents over a million people and we have to provide them certain basic facilities, at least as much as those enjoyed by our senior babus.
The other day I saw a Commissioner of Central Excise traveling in Executive class in an Air India flight and yesterday there was a Commissioner of Service Tax telling the Press that he has frozen the bank accounts of Air India, for failure to pay Service Tax.