What this means is your ‘Honourable’ MLA is entitled to a minimum pension of Rs 50,000 after just one term, while you work your butt off for a minimum of 8 hours per day. Just before Parrikar died, he agreed to increase MLAs salaries and so Rs 13.5 cr of your tax bucks was spent (some would say wasted) on salaries and pensions. Then there are the add-ons and junkets, My question is, do our MLAs past and present deserve their big pay days considering how rich they are?

April 26, 2020

Lion Roars

Not too long ago, around 2016 to be precise, the former Aldona MLA Dayanand Narvekar earned a pension of Rs 69,000 per month while former CM Luizinho Faleiro took home a mouth-watering Rs 65,000. Former chief minister, former member of parliament (and current too), former everything in fact including former MLA Francisco Sardinha laughed all the way to the bank with a fat cheque for Rs 61,000 in his wallet. They belong (according to RTI) to a list of 96 former and current MLAs in an elite club of men and women who earned Rs 50,000 and above. Now, earning a place in the Forbes list or any other list would mean that you earned those humungous amounts, even if enroute you left behind a few dead bodies so to speak. Not these lucky men and women, they simply strode off with your tax money. 

Their buddies in the coveted list included Subash Shirodkar whose pension was Rs 57,000, Ravi Naik at Rs 57,000, Ramakant Khalap at Rs 57,000, Shashikala Kakodkar at Rs 55,000 and Shaikh Hasan Haroon, the former Vasco MLA at Rs 51,000. Imagine what the two Ranes must be earning? I wish I had the figure to share with you. What this means is your ‘Honourable’ MLA (that is how they are addressed in the hallowed Legislative Assembly) is entitled to a minimum pension of Rs 50,000 after completing just one term, while you work your butt off for a minimum of eight hours per day.  All I do know is that a member is entitled to a pension of Rs 15,000 per month for every successive year of his membership in the assembly, subject to a ceiling of Rs 70,000. Your MLA hardly gets to work a 30-day session any longer thanks to the trend started by Manohar Parrikar. In fact during his long illness, the sessions were cut short to mere days. Before he died, Parrikar had also promised MLAs that he would increase their salaries. He said this in the Assembly.

 The information given then revealed Rs 13.5 cr of your tax bucks was spent (some would say wasted) on salaries of the MLAs then as well as pensions of former MLAs. 

Even Wuhan is not untouchable for them.....

Then there are the add-ons and junkets, which in Goa could even mean MLAs going to Wuhan, China to study the effects of Covid-19 on people. Remember, the former Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado, Aldona MLA Glenn Ticlo, Vasco MLA Carlos Almeida and former Velim MLA Benjamin Silva who danced the samba all the way to Rio to watch the last World Cup, and later refused to pay for their junket (‘to study football stadia there and replicate it in Goa’) after being asked to do so by the government.

 My question is, do our Honourable MLAs past and present deserve their big pay packets and pensions, considering how rich they are?

Asset Comparison of newly elected MLAs who also contested in Goa 2007 Assembly Elections

 ï‚· The average asset of these MLAs as declared in 2007 is Rs 2,68, 60,987.

 ï‚· The average asset of these MLAs as declared in 2012 is Rs 7,27, 34,267.

 ï‚· Average asset growth for these re-contesting MLAs is Rs 4,58,73,280 (Goanspirit: this is evidence that MLAs get into the spirit of things, which is make hay while the sun shines).

 ï‚· Average percentage growth in assets for these MLA is 171%.

 ï‚· Vijai Sardesai contesting as an IND from Fatorda constituency has the highest increase in asset worth Rs19.75 cr (from Rs 5.45 cr to Rs 25.21 cr), followed by Pratapsingh Rane of INC from Poriem constituency with an asset increase of Rs. 17.04 crores (from Rs 8.82 cr to Rs 25.87 cr) and Pandurang alias Deepak Dhavalikar of the MGP with an asset increase of Rs. 11.98 cr (from Rs 1.41 cr to Rs 13.40 crores).

 ï‚· Dhavalikar’s percentage increase was a staggering 848%, followed by Laxmikant Parsekar of the BJP at 749%.

 Fishes and loaves of office

The salary of Chief Ministers vary from state to state. The following table shows the salary of CMs of each state of India.

Telangana is the richest state in the country and in keeping with that its chief minister gets paid Rs 4.10 lakhs per month.  Mumbai being the commercial capital of the country, it is in keeping with things that the Maharashtra CM gets paid Rs 3.40 lakhs per month.  But how do you explain that the Goa CM gets Rs 2.20 lakhs per month while the CM of a big state like West Bengal gets Rs 2.10 lakhs per month and CMs of industrialized states like Tamil Nadu get Rs 2.05 lakhs per month and Rs 2 lakh per month respectively.  Also unlike Goa, all CMs of small states get less that Rs 2 lakhs per month. And the CM of Kerala, which is being seen as the model state currently for flattening the Covid -19 curve, gets just Rs 1 lakh per month! In fact out of the 30 states listed, the Kerala CM earns the least. Go figure!

 

Salary of chief ministers of different states as of 2019 

State

CM Salary

per month[n 1]

Telangana

₹410,000 (US$5,700)

Delhi

₹390,000 (US$5,500)

Uttar Pradesh

₹365,000 (US$5,100)

Maharashtra

₹340,000 (US$4,800)

Andhra Pradesh

₹335,000 (US$4,700)

Gujarat

₹321,000 (US$4,500)

Himachal Pradesh

₹310,000 (US$4,300)

Haryana

₹288,000 (US$4,000)

Jharkhand

₹272,000 (US$3,800)

Madhya Pradesh

₹255,000 (US$3,600)

Chhattisgarh

₹230,000 (US$3,200)

Punjab

₹230,000 (US$3,200)

Goa

₹220,000 (US$3,100)

Bihar

₹215,000 (US$3,000)

West Bengal

₹210,000 (US$2,900)

Tamil Nadu

₹205,000 (US$2,900)

Karnataka

₹200,000 (US$2,800)

Sikkim

₹190,000 (US$2,700)

Tripura

₹185,500 (US$2,600)

Kerala

₹100,000 (US$1,400)

Mizoram [a]

₹184,000 (US$2,600)

Rajasthan

₹175,000 (US$2,500)

Uttarakhand

₹175,000 (US$2,500)

Odisha

₹160,000 (US$2,200)

Meghalaya

₹150,000 (US$2,100)

Arunachal Pradesh

₹133,000 (US$1,900)

Assam

₹125,000 (US$1,800)

Manipur

₹120,000 (US$1,700)

Puducherry

₹120,000 (US$1,700)

Nagaland

₹110,000 (US$1,500)