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Chandigarh MC house meet today: Proposal to hike councillors honorarium, perks to come up
At present, councillors’ get ₹15,000 a month as ‘constituency allowance (honorarium)’ which has been proposed to be taken up to ₹30,000. The city currently has 35 elected councillors.
The Chandigarh municipal corporation is all set to bring a proposal to double its councillors’ ‘constituency allowance (honorarium)’, besides hiking the other perks, during the General House meeting on Tuesday.
At present, councillors’ get ₹15,000 a month as ‘constituency allowance (honorarium)’ which has been proposed to be taken up to ₹30,000. The city currently has 35 elected councillors.
For the first time, the MC has also proposed ₹5,000 for each elected and nominated councillor as ‘fuel allowance’, every month.
The councillors are also entitled to other perks such as a telephone allowance of ₹2,750 every month.
The finance and contract committee (F&CC) has already approved ₹5,000 a month as entertainment expenses for each councillor. This is to be used to meet the expenditure of serving tea, coffee and refreshments to their guests. The disbursement of entertainment expenses will start from November.
The mayor is entitled to entertainment expense of ₹15,000 whereas the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor will get ₹7,000 under this head.
If approved, the total allowance of the Chandigarh mayor will go up to ₹77,750, whereas that of the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor will go up to ₹68,750 and ₹63,500, respectively (see box).
When Chandigarh MC was established in 1996, the councillors’ monthly honorarium was ₹1,000 a month and that of the mayor ₹2,000 per month.
The councillors and mayor believed that an increase in the honorarium of councillors is the need of the hour in the wake of increased daily expenses and long-pending demand. The councillors were repeatedly demanding fuel expense, a multi-tasker helper, expenses of refreshments and other perks.
Other agendas to be tabled today
The MC has proposed renting out the 108 long-vacant built-up booths and two halls of the shopping centre in Vikas Nagar, Mauli Jagran, after multiple auctions failed to bring in the necessary funds. The engineering wing of MC said that the monthly fee for booths will be ₹8,631 per booth, and the monthly cost for halls will be ₹65,806 each.
The proposal for constructing a new community centre in Sector 47 will also be placed before the house.
