Chennai, January 12: The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a bill regarding salary hike on MLAs wherein salary and other allowances will go up from Rs 55,000 to Rs 1.05 lakh per month, an increase of 90.91 per cent.
The bill seeks to give effect to the decision taken by the state government in 2017 to hike the pay for legislators and allowances for the chief minister and ministers with effect from July 1, 2017.
On Wednesday, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam introduced the bill which was opposed by DMK whip R Sakkarapani.
On July 19, 2017, Chief Minister E Palaniswami had announced the hike in salary and allowances in the state assembly with effect from July 1.
The bill seeks to amend the Tamil Nadu Payment of Salaries Act, 1951 to give effect to the government’s last year hike, which would entail an additional outgo of Rs 25.32 crore per annum.
As per the bill, allowances for the Chief Minister, Ministers, the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition and the government chief whip have been increased with effect from July 1, 2017.
The Deputy Chief Minister is also now included in the Bill under this category eligible for increased allowances, Pension for former MLAs and members of the now defunct legislative council has also been increased to Rs 20,000 from Rs 12,000 per month.
Family pension for relatives of late MLAs has also hiked by Rs 10,000. They get 50 per cent of the pension drawn by pensioner-legislators.
The annual medical allowance for retired MLAs was increased to Rs 25,000 from Rs 12,000.
With inputs from PTI