MPs paid well, but show less productivity: citizens’ report

• According to the recent report of the National Social Watch’s “Citizens’ Report on Governance and Development 2013” India’s parliamentarians are one of the best paid legislators across the world but they lag when it comes to performing legislative business.
• In terms of absolute amount, the value of Indian MPs’ pay and perks is higher than their counterparts in Singapore, Japan and Italy. It is four and a half times higher than that of Pakistan; and is about 68 times higher than the per capita income of the country. A three-fold rise in the basic salary, on August 20, 2010 was protested against by many MPs, who described this ‘low’ hike as an insult to the country’s legislators.
• Highlighting the low productivity of parliamentarians, the report points out that the nine sessions during 2010-12 saw the Lok Sabha working for an average of less than four hours of work a day during its 227 sittings in 852 hours, which is less than two-thirds of scheduled six hours per day. In the process, about 577 hours have been lost in disruptions and forced adjournments.
• In 2010, the government had hiked the pay packet of an MP from Rs. 56,000 to Rs.1.40 lakh a month. The salary component was raised from Rs.16,000 a month to Rs.50,000, constituency allowance from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 45,000, and office allowance from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 45,000.
•  In terms of the ratio of the pay package to national per capita income, India ranks second after Kenya and pays almost double than the U.S. Political parties work less in Parliament to perform their designated functions as people’s representatives and legislators.
• Highlighting another interesting point, the study says Rs. 5,799.3 crore and Rs.9 ,963.9 crore was allocated for about 2.5-lakh local governing bodies in 2010-11 and 2011-12 respectively, which looks meagre compared to about Rs. 4,000 crore per annum allotted to about 800 MPs under the local area development programme.