New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced a hike of Rs 40,000 per month in salaries of MLAs, ministers of state, and cabinet ministers of the state.
While making the announcement at the state Assembly, Banerjee said that there will be no revision in the salary of the chief minister as she has not been drawing any salary for a long time.
"The salary of MLAs of the West Bengal Assembly is very less compared to that of other states. So it has been decided that their salaries will be hiked by Rs 40,000 per month, " she said.
The other additional perks and allowances that cabinet ministers, ministers of state and legislators are entitled to in addition to monthly salaries will remain the same, reported IANS.
With this hike, the MLAs will now get a monthly salary of Rs 50,000, as against the existing amount of Rs 10,000. The monthly salaries of the ministers of the state have been increased from Rs 10,900 to Rs 50,900. The cabinet ministers will earn Rs 51,000, up from Rs 11,000.
This would mean that the actual monthly payment received by the legislators including the salaries, allowances, and perks will now increase to Rs 1.21 lakh from the current rate of Rs 81,000 a month, an officer of the state government told IANS.
Similarly, the actual monthly payment received by ministers from now onwards will be increased from Rs 1.10 lakh a month to around RS 1.50 lakh per month.
According to the agency, political observers, however, feel that these enhanced salaries for the minister and MLAs are bound to agitate further the state government employees, who have been long demanding enhanced dearness allowances to be made at par with Central government employees and the arrears accrued on it.
It is to be noted that state government employees have been protesting for months demanding a hike in Dearness Allowance (DA).