Corporators seek to give themselves a 150% pay hike

Civic corporators have unanimously passed a resolution that calls for a 150% hike in their monthly remuneration, from Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 — a demand that will be fulfilled with taxpayers’ money if it receives legal sanction. Poorvi Kulkarni reports.

Civic corporators have unanimously passed a resolution that calls for a 150% hike in their monthly remuneration, from Rs10,000 to Rs 25,000 – a demand that will be fulfilled with taxpayers’ money if it receives legal sanction.

Brushing aside objections raised by the civic administration, the corporators passed the resolution at the civic general body meeting on Tuesday.

Corporators currently receive a monthly honorarium of Rs10,000 for rendering civic services in their wards. There are 232 corporators in the BMC, of which 227 are elected and five nominated. Corporators had demanded that their pay be raised to Rs50,000, a sum that was later brought down to Rs25,000.

Only two years ago, the honorarium was hiked from Rs4,500 to Rs10,000 per month. Following the hike, the civic body’s annual expenditure on honoraria to elected representatives is expected to increase from Rs2.78 crore to Rs6.96 crore.

The current remuneration is a measley sum and causes a lot of economic hardship for corporators," said Rahul Shewale, civic standing committee chairman and Shiv Sena corporator who tabled the resolution. Besides, we incur a lot of expenses owing to the work that has to be carried out in our wards."

However, the civic administration has not been keen on catering to this demand considering the additional expenditure will have to be borne by the civic body. A similar demand that was placed last year was struck down by the then municipal commissioner, Subodh Kumar.

We had a number of internal discussions with corporators to minimise the raise. Although the resolution has been passed, we will have to look getting the legal sanction for it," said a senior civic official.

Citizen groups have slammed the demand and questioned the need for the raise.

The hike will only be an additional burden on taxpayers. If we look at the state of civic amenities in the city, corporators do not deserve increased pay," said James John, executive committee member, Action for good Governance and Networking in India. Those who have been working sincerely deserve more pay, but there is no yardstick to measure their performance."