Re: Salary for legislators.

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

I'm OK with a general statement which says that 

a) The wages of lawmakers and judges should be immediately enhanced to
much higher levels and should continually increase to levels comparable to
the CEOs of middle level private enterprises. 

b) The numbers of government employees in the executive branch should be
carefully pruned and cut down to at least half the current size within ten
years; and the salary of the rest should be slowly doubled, at the least,
and should be increased incrementally in due course, while incrementally
decreasing the size of government to the bare miniumum needed to
efficiently run the justifiable tasks of government. 

Why I am suggesting this modification is because though I have no problem
with the numbers, per se, we perhaps don't wish to put specific numbers
down since these will be a function of the available resources at each
stage of the process. 

I am sure that paying an MP ten lakhs per year ($25,000 in current USD
terms) is not a ridiculously high amount, given that most of them have to
spend at least that much merely to pass their message around to the
people, during the elections. However the number might sound too high when
posted on the Manifesto. We can however put a desirable number down, to be
achieved in the future, say Rs.10 lakhs at current value. 

Sanjeev
***************************************************************************

On Sun, 19 Apr 1998, BDP India wrote:

> I propose a salary of Rs. 100,000 per month to an MP and Rs 75,000 per month for
> an MLA. High Government officials should be paid in the range of Rs. 50,000 to Rs
> 75,000 per month. Do we agree on such numbers for the manifesto purposes. I think
> I had proposed the reasons for such numbers earlier. I think most of the MPs do get
> a residence in Delhi as well in their constituency.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Utkarsh
>