Chandigarh, March 25: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced on Friday that legislators will in future get only one pension even if they were elected to the Assembly more than once, ending a practice that allowed some MLAs to draw lakhs of rupees every month.
“Today, we have taken another big decision,” said Mann, who on March 16 assumed office at the head of an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. “The pension formula for Punjab’s MLAs will be changed. MLAs will now be eligible for only one pension. “Thousands of crores of rupees which were being spent on MLA pensions will now be used to benefit the people of Punjab,” he said, adding that the family pension shall also be majorly curtailed.
The AAP had been making this demand even when it was the main opposition in the last Punjab legislature, calling it morally indefensible. Every time a person served as a member of the Punjab assembly, he or she could be entitled to a pension of Rs 75,150 and an extra 66 per cent for every additional session they served.
In the process, former Chief Minister and Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal was drawing more than Rs 5 lakh as pension — until March 17 this year when he told the Punjab authorities that he will not be taking pension any more and that the money can be used for public welfare. Some members including former Chief Minister Rajinder Kumar Bhattal were drawing Rs 3.25 lakh as pension every month. Many others too were drawing in lakhs. Mann said some former MLAs were drawing two, three and even five pensions at the cost of the exchequer.
“They don’t even come to the (assembly). The pension they get varies from Rs 3.50 lakh to Rs 5.25 lakh. This burdens the state exchequer.” Mann pointed out that some of the MLAs later became MPs and were drawing pension from Parliament too. UNI
