CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday announced a bouquet of financial benefits to legislators by increasing their monthly salary and allowances by about 100 per cent, besides hiking the quantum of money for the MLA constituency development funds.
Announcing the pay hike amid thumping of desks by members in the Assembly, Chief Minister ‘Edappadi’ K Palaniswami said the hike was made after representations from several MLAs and former MLAs and MLCs, besides Pandi (Congress), Murugumaran and Sakthivel (AIADMK) raising the demand in the House.
The salary of MLAs was hiked to Rs 30,000 from Rs 8,000 while compensatory allowance (Rs 10,000), telephone allowance (Rs 7,500), constituency allowance (Rs 25,000), consolidated allowance (Rs 5,000) and vehicle allowance (Rs 25,000) were also raised; the postal remained unchanged at Rs 2,500. The total salary and allowances of a legislator leaped to Rs 1.05 lakh from Rs 55,000 per month.
The compensatory allowance, miscellaneous expenses and constituency allowance for the Chief Minister, ministers and Speaker were increased to Rs 15,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively.
Similarly, the same allowances provided to the Deputy Speaker, Leader of Opposition and Chief Government Whip were raised to Rs 15,000, Rs 7,500 and Rs 25,000 respectively.
The monthly pension given to former MLAs and MLCs was increased to Rs 20,000 from Rs 12,000, while family was hiked to Rs 10,000, besides a hike in the medical allowance to Rs 25,000 from Rs 12,000 per month.
Palaniswami declared that the salary and allowance hike would come into effect from July 1.