New Delhi, Feb 1: While releasing the Budget document for the year 2018-19 on Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a pay hike for the President, the Vice President and Governors. Jaitley also proposed a law which would bar lawmakers from fixing their own emoluments -- a practice which has drawn sharp criticism from sections of the civil society. Instead, the salary of MPs would be revised automatically at five-year periods, as per the rate of inflation.

According to the proposed law, all aspects of the MPs' salary -- basic pay, constituency allowance, office expenses, meeting allowances and other perks -- would be automatically get revised at a period of five years, indexed to inflation. If the proposed legislation gets accepted, the first-such salary increment would come into effect on April 18, 2018.

Parliamentarians should accept this module for pay hike if they do not intend to "face future criticism" for revising their own emoluments, Jaitley said, during his Budget speech.

The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs have raised the demand of pay increment on multiple occasions over the past two years , ever since the implementation of 7th Pay Commission -- which raised the salary of top bureaucrats to almost at par with what the Parliamentarian draws.

The current basic pay of MPs is Rs 50,000, along with Rs 45,000 being granted as constituency allowance. However, inclusive of all other perks, the government ends up spending nearly Rs 2.7 lakh per month on each parliamentarian.

As per the 7th CPC recommendation, the Cabinet Secretary-level officer draws a monthly income of Rs 2.25 lakh, whereas, the Cabinet Secretary -- the senior-most bureaucrat -- is entitled to a salary of Rs 2.50 lakh.

Meanwhile, the President of India, whose incumbent monthly emolument is 1.5 lakh, will now be entitled to a salary of 5 lakh per month. The salary of Vice President has been been hiked from Rs 1.25 lakh to Rs 4 lakh per month. The Governors will now draw Rs  Rs 3.5 lakh, up from the incumbent pay of Rs 1.1 lakh.

The monthly emoluments of Presidents, Vice Presidents and Governors was last revised in January 2006, when the 6th Pay Commission was implemented for the central government employees.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 01, 2018 07:47 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).