Punjab’s decision to enrich its Chief Minister, Speaker, and the legislators will cost it more than Rs20 crore annually. And it took less than ten minutes for the State Assembly to take the decision. Four Bills, regarding hike in the salaries of Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, leader of Opposition, Ministers, MlAs, along with the pensions to the former legislators, were “unanimously” passed by the House within 10 minutes without any detailed discussion.
The hike is set to put an additional burden of Rs20.25 crores on the state exchequer every year — including Rs 2.30 crore on the salaries of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal. Adjudged to be the “highest paid Chief Minister” as per the research carried out by Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad, Badal has received a maximum hike of 100 per cent — from Rs50,000 to Rsone lakh per month.
The salaries of Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, Deputy Speaker Dinesh Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir and the leader of Opposition Sunil Jakhar have also been hiked from Rs30,000 to Rs50,000. The salary, allowances and other facilities to the two would put an additional burden of Rs33.60 lakhs. Besides, the salaries of Cabinet Ministers were increased from Rs20,000 to Rs40,000 per month, while that of all the MlAs, it was hiked from Rs15,000 to Rs25,000. Hike in MlAs salaries would cost State treasury Rs6.61 crores.
Congress MlA Bharat Bhushan Ashu urged Sukhbir to provide MlA local area development (lAD) funds on the pattern of MP-lAD funds. “We did not ask for salary hike. Instead, we should be given MlA lAD funds…Anything between Rsfive lakh to Rsten lakh,” said Ashu. Responding, Sukhbir “reluctantly” said that it would be considered. The enhancement in salaries and allowances came after the recommendations of the House’s General Purposes Committee.
A senior Government official said that the previous hike was in 2011 and even after this, the MlAs, including Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister would still get less than what their respective counterparts in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were drawing. The decision has come at a time when the “cash-strapped” government has failed to fulfill its election promises of increasing the old age and widow pensions, backing from providing laptops to students, not providing unemployment allowance, pending payment to sugarcane growers, among other things.
Moreover, the government has recently delayed 55 per cent of wages of its employees and postponed the release of 30 per cent arrears of new pay scales to them citing a resource crunch. Facing a revenue deficit of over Rs6,000 crore, the state’s outstanding debt is also touched all set to cross Rs1,24,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal.
Raising the “concern” of the Chief Parliamentary Secretaries, SAD MlA Mantar Singh Brar pointed that theer was “no mention” of the CPS’s salaries. Clarifying, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madan Mohan Mittal said that or their hike, the Government would issue a notification. Punjab Cabinet, on March 19, approved to give a double hike in salaries of the CPS — from Rs20,000 to Rs40,000 per month.
TWO MORE PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN PUNJAB
Punjab is all set to add two more universities in its long list of around 26 universities, out of which approximately 13 are private. Punjab Assembly on Wednesday passed two bills to set up Surya World University and Akal University in the state “to impart quality higher education”. The two “self-financing” universities would be set up under the Punjab Private Universities Policy, 2010. While Surya World University would be established at Bapror in Patiala district, Akal University would come up at Talwandi Sabo in Bathinda district.
Even as the state legislators have, at several instances earlier, pointed out the failings of the private or self-financed universities, the State Government has, seemingly, adopted a devil-may-care attitude. Not only the opposition leaders, the MlAs from the ruling SAD-BJP combine had many a times raised their voice against setting up “recklessly” these “money minting shops”, and have called for a proper effective mechanism to have checks and balances on such private universities.
The State Government had assured to have proper checks on such universities, while ensuring that they allot 10 per cent of total seats to the poor and needy students. Besides Central University at Bathinda, the State has around ten state universities, besides deemed and private universities. Expressing their concern over “commercialisation” of these universities during discussion on Bills on Wednesday, the MlAs emphasised to ensure reservation policy for the SC community, standards of education, have proper checks on its functioning, among other things. Higher Education Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra also assured to consider all pointes raised by the MlAs.
WOMEN TO WORK IN NIGHT SHIFTS
Punjab Assembly also approved amendments in the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958, stipulating that women workers would be allowed to work during night shifts in establishments covered under “Shops and Commercial establishments Act”, subject to certain conditions to ensure their safety.
OTHER BIllS PASSED
In all, the assembly passed 13 bills while one has been withdrawn. Other bills that received House’s approval were The Minimum Wages (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2015; The Punjab Agriculture Produce Market (Amendment) Bill, 2015; the IK Gujral technical University (Amendment) Bill, 2015; The Punjab Ancient, Historical Monuments, Archaeological Sites and Cultural Heritage Maintenance Board (Amendment) Bill, 2015; The Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill, 2015; and the Punjab state Board of Technical Education and Industrial Training (Amendment) Bill, 2015.