BHUBANESWAR: The legislators of Odisha are poorer than their counterparts in 21 States. The average annual income of MLAs in the State is Rs 8.76 lakh, fifth lowest in the country. According to the latest report of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released on Monday, the average annual income of the lawmakers in the State is significantly less than that of national average of Rs 24.59 lakh.
The organisation working for electoral and political reforms has released the report after analysing the affidavits of 3,145 sitting MLAs, including 117 (out of 147) from Odisha, filed during their last elections.
As per the report, 63 MLAs in Chhattisgarh have the lowest average annual income of Rs 5.4 lakh, followed by Jharkhand’s 72 MLAs with Rs 7.4 lakh, West Bengal’s 229 MLAs draw Rs 7.8 lakh on an average annually and Manipur’s 42 MLAs draw Rs 8 lakh while Odisha is placed at fifth position from the bottom.
The report indicated that 614 MLAs in the eastern region, comprising Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, have the lowest average income of Rs 8.53 lakh.The legislators in Karnataka have highest average annual income of Rs 1.11 crore and 711 MLAs in the southern region have the highest average annual income of Rs 51.99 lakh. “The income of 941 MLAs, including 30 from Odisha has not been analysed as they have not declared it in their respective affidavits filed during the last election. The analysis primarily focused on the annual self-income of sitting MLAs,” the report stated.
Altogether 139 legislators across the States with 8th pass qualification have an average annual income of Rs 89.88 lakh and it is Rs 9.31 lakh for MLAs, who have announced themselves to be illiterate.As many as 397 MLAs from agriculture/farming and business background have the highest average annual income of Rs 57.81 lakh. On an average, a male MLA’s annual income is Rs 25.85 lakh and a female’s is Rs 10.53 lakh. The State-wise data of MLAs as per qualification, profession and gender is not available.
Meanwhile, Odisha Government has hiked the salary of its MLAs from Rs 60,000 to Rs 1 lakh per month on September 13, last year.As per the affidavits filed during 2014 polls, of 147 legislators, more than half are crorepatis and their income soared by 24 per cent. Of 76 crorepatis, 62 are from BJD and nine from BJP. The average assets of the 147 MLAs was found to be Rs 3.22 crore and BJP’s Dilip Ray is the richest lawmaker with assets worth Rs 102 crore.