Amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Union Government passed an ordinance on 6th April to cut the salaries, allowances and pensions of Member of Parliaments (MPs) by 30% for a period of one year starting from April 1st 2020.
The list of MP also includes our Prime Minister, his cabinet and the President. The aim is to save the amount of money and utilize it in the fight against COVID-19.
How much money do MP’s make?
A Member of Parliament earns a salary of Rs 1,00,000 a month. Along with this, they get Rs. 70,000 per month as constituency allowance, and an additional office expense of Rs. 60,000 per month. On top of that, when the parliament is in session, they receive Rs. 2000 per day as daily allowance. That is close to Rs. 2,30,000 a month. Now, that’s a lot of money!
Our Prime Minister also earns around Rs. 2.3 lakh every month. While our former MPs are entitled to a pension of Rs 25,000 per month and an additional Rs. 2,000 per month for every extra month they have served as an MP over a 5-year term.
Apart from these remunerations, our MPs are also entitled to a multitude of perks and privileges, like furniture allowance, travel allowance, etc.
But even if we exclude all these perks, the government is expected to save around Rs. 64.61 crores a year with this cut.
Not just salaries.
It is not just the salaries that have been cut for our MPs. The Union Cabinet has also directed the suspension of the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) fund for a period of 2 years. Each MP gets Rs. 5 crore per annum for carrying out development work in their constituency.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar said that this will result in a saving of Rs 7,900 crore.
That is a considerate amount of money that the government would be saving and ultimately utilising in the fight against Coronavirus.