AAP Govt's khaas perks for 21 Parl Secys not under 'office of profit'

The Aam Aadmi Party Government is ready to provide all luxury and privileges to 21 Parliamentary Secretaries and at the same time ensure that those benefits do not fall under the category of “office of profit”.  Therefore, Delhi Cabinet assembled on Friday in a secret manner and put the office of Parliamentary Secretaries outside the purview of office of profit. In other words, Delhi Government has approved an amendment to segregate the post of Parliament Secretaries from the office of profit.  With this amendment in place, now the MlAs who have been appointed as Parliamentary Secretary can very well remain in their posts. 

The AAP Government had claimed that Parliamentary Secretaries will not receive any remuneration or any perks of any kind from the Government — meaning no burden on exchequer. They, however, may use Government transport for official purposes and space in the Minister’s office would be provided to them to facilitate their work.

Top sources said that Delhi Cabinet has approved an amendment and put the post of Parliamentary Secretary outside the office of profit.  The proposal was moved by law, Justice and legislative Affairs to this effect. Extreme care was taken that content of this Cabinet proposal need not go beyond the secret group of trusted officials and Cabinet Ministers. In fact, all previous Governments both Congress and BJP, the number of Parliamentary Secretary was one or two and this time the figure has jumped to 21.

When asked, former Congress MlA and Parliamentary Secretary to then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Kanwar Karan Singh questioned that if the posts of Parliamentary Secretary do not come under office of profit then why the Arvind Kejriwal Government has decided to remove it from the ‘office of profit’ block. 

The Kejriwal Government had appointed 21 AAP MlAs as Parliamentary Secretaries to the Ministers for its smooth functioning. Among the Parliamentary Secretaries who have been appointed by CM are Praveen Kumar to Education Minister, Sharad Kumar to Revenue Minister, Adarsh Shastri to Information & Technology Minister, Madan lal to Vigilance Minister, Charan Goel to Finance Minister, Sanjeev 

Jha to Transport Minister, Sarita Singh to Employment Minister, Naresh Yadav to labour Minister, Jarnail Singh to Minister of Development, Rajesh Gupta to Health Minister and Rajesh Rishi to Health Minister. Apart from them, MlAs — Anil Kumar Bajpai has been parliamentary Secretary to Health Minister followed by Som Dutt to Industries Minister, Avtar Singh Kalka to Minister of Gurdwara Elections, Vijender Garg Vijay to Minister of PWD, Jarnail Singh to Minister of Power, Kailash Gahlot to Minister of law, Alka lamba to Minister of Tourism, Manoj Kumar to Minister of Food & Civil Supplies, Nitin Tyagi to Minister of Women, Child & Social Welfare and Sukhvir Singh to Minister of languages & Welfare of SC/ST/OBC.