PANJIM: Imagine this. A government employee works eight hours a day for his entire life but post retirement gets peanuts as pension. In contrast an elected Member of Legislative Assembly, who hardly has 30-day sittings in the assembly, gets more than 50,000 a month as “pension” after completion of his/ her term.
Yes, we are talking about the takeaway salaries and pensions of the elected MLAs, on whom the state is spending a fortune through exchequer’s money.
Information received under RTI reveals that the State is spending over Rs 13.5 cr on salaries of present MLAs as well as the pensions of the former MLAs.
Information reveals that each of the 40 MLAs is entitled for a monthly salary of Rs 10,000 besides constituency allowances of Rs 90,000 and staff salary allowances of Rs 1,01,550, which totals to about Rs 9,67,44,000 of all 40 MLAs annually.
Not only this, after the retirement they are entitled for hefty pensions based on the number of terms they have served.
Documents revealed that the state is spending Rs 3.51 cr annually for the pensions which range between Rs 15000 and Rs 69000 per month based on the tenure served by the member in the assembly.
For instance, former Aldona MLA Dayanand Narvekar gets a pension of Rs 69000 while the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Luizinho Faleiro, who was former Navelim MLA, gets a pension of Rs 65,000 while former chief minister and former member of parliament Francisco Sardinha gets a monthly packet of Rs 61000.
Subash Shirodkar (Rs 57000), Ravi Naik (Rs 57000), Ramakant Khalap (Rs 57000), Shashikala Kakodkar (Rs 55000) and Shaikh Hasan Haroon (Rs 51000) are the other former legislators who are in the bracket of Rs 50,000 and above.
Altogether there are 96 former MLAs who get this privilege from the State.
Now compare it with the government servant, most common being the Lower Division Clerks and the Upper Division Clerks, who get a paltry pension post retirement, despite giving most of their life to the
service.
Sources inform that on an average a LDC or an UDC gets a pension of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000.
Moreover, the legislators with the lowest pension of Rs 15,000, is actually getting more than the salary drawn by the LDCs at present.
Mangaldas Shetkar, former president of Goa Government Employees Association, and also a retired government employee himself, said the following.
“These figures are ridiculous. An employee, who gives his 33 years of his life to the government in service, gets peanuts while the MLAs who just complete one or two terms get more than Rs 50,000,” he says.
Shetkar says that if an employee gets 50 per cent of his last salary drawn but if he does not cover 20 years of service he is not entitled for full pension.
“There has to be some similarity, there is increase in DA but is it enough? The question has to be asked,” he says, adding the government employees must also get at least 75 per cent of the last salary drawn.
