1. Indian MPs, MLAs get substantial perqs, including housing travel allowance, constituency allowance, life long pension, etc. If that is not true for the countries you have com[pared with, the picture is probably spurious?
2. What about comparing MP pay as a multiple of per capita income in each country?
This article seems to be presenting one side opinions around the factors which are either not relevant or least relevant.
1. MPs who are essentially representative of the people when we compare the pay with other countries we must look at the people of these countries which these MPs are representing:
Per capita income in USA is 76.39K USD, in Brazil 8.9K USD, while in India it is a mere 2.4K USD. Indians have nearly 31 times less per capita GDP than united states people and 3.7 times less than those in Brazil. The salary of representatives should reflect income of the people they are representing, therefore MPs salary calls for a sharp cut not increase.
2. For any pay raise we should look at the performance, look at the performances of the MPs over the period last 30 years (in all the governments), we still have lack of basic education, healthcare, infrastructure (in villages and with in cities especially). And compare them with the counterpart countries developed or even emerging.
3. Apart from performance, next aspect that is looked at while considering pay raise, the ability/financials of the organizations (country in this case). In the time while debt on the country is on all time high, this is laughable and ridiculing towards the country to talk about pay raise of MPs
4. Also, politics is not a full time work it is still a social cause, therefore we must look at the current assets that MPs holds. Many MPs with assets in crores while people they are representing are living on free rations given by government social justice don't call for any pay rise, to say the least.
1. Indian MPs, MLAs get substantial perqs, including housing travel allowance, constituency allowance, life long pension, etc. If that is not true for the countries you have com[pared with, the picture is probably spurious?
2. What about comparing MP pay as a multiple of per capita income in each country?
This article seems to be presenting one side opinions around the factors which are either not relevant or least relevant.
1. MPs who are essentially representative of the people when we compare the pay with other countries we must look at the people of these countries which these MPs are representing:
Per capita income in USA is 76.39K USD, in Brazil 8.9K USD, while in India it is a mere 2.4K USD. Indians have nearly 31 times less per capita GDP than united states people and 3.7 times less than those in Brazil. The salary of representatives should reflect income of the people they are representing, therefore MPs salary calls for a sharp cut not increase.
2. For any pay raise we should look at the performance, look at the performances of the MPs over the period last 30 years (in all the governments), we still have lack of basic education, healthcare, infrastructure (in villages and with in cities especially). And compare them with the counterpart countries developed or even emerging.
3. Apart from performance, next aspect that is looked at while considering pay raise, the ability/financials of the organizations (country in this case). In the time while debt on the country is on all time high, this is laughable and ridiculing towards the country to talk about pay raise of MPs
4. Also, politics is not a full time work it is still a social cause, therefore we must look at the current assets that MPs holds. Many MPs with assets in crores while people they are representing are living on free rations given by government social justice don't call for any pay rise, to say the least.
Cutting pay would guarantee that no person with even an ounce of integrity is going to opt for the role of a politician.
My phrase about cutting salary is in context of data from other economies which is one of the point raised by editor not in absolute terms.