Tamil Nadu Govt To Propose Bill For Increasing Former Legislators' Pension, Announces CM MK Stalin

Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday informed the assembly that the state government would be tabling a bill next Monday to increase the pension for former MLAs by Rs 5,000.

MK Stalin (File Picture)

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government is likely to increase the pension for former legislators from Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 at the earliest. 

Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday informed the assembly that the state government would be tabling a bill next Monday to increase the pension for former MLAs by Rs 5,000. 

According to a report in The Hindu, Stalin said that though the announcement regarding the increase in pension for former MLAs was made earlier by the previous AIADMK government, it remained as a mere announcement. Ideally, a formal bill should have been moved in the assembly to implement the announcement but the former government did not do that, he added. 

The chief minister was responding to a request made by BJP floor leader Nainar Nagenthran. Opposition leader Edappadi K Palaniswami was also present during the debate in the assembly. 

Stalin, according to the report, said that the DMK government would move and adopt a bill for increasing the pension of former MLAs on the last day of the ongoing session. 

The report said, while responding to the requests made by PMK floor leader GK Mani, Stalin said that cases registered against MLAs would be withdrawn after verifying their nature. 

Explaining that cases were being withdrawn and in some instances, the nature of the cases was being scrutinized, he said that since some of the cases are in the court, there are some legal hurdles in withdrawing the court but the state government’s intention was to withdraw these cases to the possible extent, the report added.