E-Paper
Chandigarh MC drops plan to hike councillors’ honorarium
During the last house meeting on October 17, the civic body had proposed to hike councillors’ monthly honorarium from ₹15,000 (at present) to ₹30,000
House meet today
With parties gearing up for the Lok Sabha polls which are slated for May-June 2024, the BJP-run Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) has dropped the proposal of doubling city councillors’ ‘constituency allowance (honorarium)’, besides hiking the other perks, MC officials said on Monday.
During the last house meeting on October 17, the civic body had proposed to hike councillors’ monthly honorarium from ₹15,000 (at present) to ₹30,000. In addition, the MC has also proposed ₹5,000 for each elected and nominated councillor as ‘fuel allowance’, every month. The agenda, however, was deferred to the next house meeting.
But the agenda will not be taken up in the house meeting to be held on Tuesday as the proposal had invited strong criticism from various sectors. “How can a cash-strapped civic body spend public money on increasing the councillors’ salary when the developmental projects are being halted,” officials and city residents had said while criticising the MC’s proposal.
“We have dropped the proposal of hiking the councillors’ monthly honorarium. We will see it in future,” said mayor Anup Gupta.
It was learnt that the MC’s administrative wing had included the proposal in the agenda, but the mayor had rejected it.
In the coming year, the BJP will be fighting against Congress whereas AAP will be fighting to retain the seat it won in 2014 and 2019.
Also, the civic body will go for the mayoral election in January 2024 with the tenure of mayor Anup Gupta coming to an end.
“The proposal for the hike in the constituency allowance had been unanimously passed twice by the earlier MC houses also but never cleared by the UT administration’s local bodies department. Any such resolution again would have been an exercise in futility by the General House resulting in needless negative publicity only without any single positive result. No point doing things that are not in your hands ultimately,” said BJP councillor Mahesh Inder Singh Sidhu.
City BJP chief Jatinder Malhotra, however, said that it is MC’s personal affairs and had nothing to do with the party’s decision.
On the other hand, city Congress chief HS Lucky said that councillors should get respectable honorarium considering the inflation. “I don’t know if the BJP will propose the hike or not, but it should be done,” he said.
AAP councillor Damanpreet Singh said that the honorarium should be increased as councillors are not able to concentrate on their businesses.
Other agendas to be taken up
The civic body is proposing construction of a new community centre after demolishing the existing Janj Ghar in Sector 47 after the earlier plans of setting up a ₹76-crore modern banquet hall by razing the existing Janj Ghar hit a roadblock.
Apart from that, firefighting system in community centres and dispensaries and renting 112 booths or shopping centres of Vikas Nagar on a monthly basis are some of the agendas to be taken up in the meeting.
