The AAP MLA from Sunam, Aman Arora on Saturday raised the bar for other lawmakers by surrendering his TA/DA and other perks for the first day of Punjab Vidhan Sabha session when no actual work had taken place.
In a letter written to the Speaker of Punjab Assembly Rana KP Singh, Arora had contended that his conscious does not allow him to take TA/DA and other perks for December 13 when session was adjourned within 11 minutes after paying obituaries to the departed souls, and no issue concerning the State or its public was discussed.
Arora further wrote that Chief Minister Capt. Amrinder Singh had recently, while justifying shorter assembly sessions had said that it cost state exchequer a whopping Rs 70 lakh a day to conduct the assembly proceedings, then how could the CM, his government and the Speaker could be so insensitive that they let Rs 70 lakh of public money go down the drain just for 11 minute of Obituaries, whereas there should have been a sitting , may be after a short interval after that , so as to discuss public issues.
Arora said, in a situation where the state is under a debt of Rs 2.5 lakh crores, farmers are committing suicides, no jobs for the youth, industry and trade in shambles, teachers are forced to work on reduced salaries and mafias running the roost, such kind of wasteful spending totally reflects the insensitive attitude of the government towards the state's fiscal health.
Cautioning the State Government and the Speaker to be more concerned to the state exchequer in future, he appealed to the Speaker to have a sitting after the obituary references in the sessions to come, else he would not take TA/DA and other perks citing 'no work- no allowance'.