Gandhinagar: Gujarat governor O P Kohli today gave his assent to the Salaries and Allowances of Members, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly, Ministers and Leader of Opposition Laws (Amendment) Bill 2018, which was past during the brief 2 day monsoon session of the assembly paving way for hefty increase in the salaries of MLAs.

The unanimous passage of the bill and the manner in which it was tabled without its prior mention in the agenda for the day on September 19 the second and last day of the session of 14 th assembly, had also drawn criticism from various quarters. On the same day Congress had before giving its full support to the bill had taken out a cycle rally to the assembly against rises in the prices of petroleum products.

The bill was introduced by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Pradipsinh Jadeja who had said that it was first revision of salaries of MLAs after 2005 and that the remuneration of their counterparts in other states was comparatively much higher.

The salary of an MLA in Gujarat will now be Rs 1.16 lakh, up from the existing Rs 70,727, a rise of about 64 per cent, while those of the ministers, Assembly speaker, deputy speaker and leader of opposition will go up from Rs 86,000 to Rs 1.32 lakh, an increase of about 54 per cent. According to the new pay structure, the personal assistant allowance has been hiked from Rs 3,000 to Rs 20,000 and telephone from Rs 4,000 to Rs 7,000.

The new salary would be paid from the retrospective effect of February 2017. It would put an extra load of Rs 10 crore on the exchequer and also Rs 6 crore in arrears would be paid.

In the 182 member Gujarat Assembly the ruling BJP has 99 MLAs, Main opposition Congress has 77, three Independents, one from Nationalist Congress Party and two from Bharatiya Tribal Party of former JDU state president Chhotu Vasava.

DeshGujarat