New Delhi: After ministers were asked to practise thrift by travelling economy on domestic flights and avoid five-star hotels as meeting venues, MPs of the ruling Congress party too have been asked to follow austerity measures.
In keeping with the party high command's call against the backdrop of drought, several MPs told IANS they had decided to go along with these measures.
"No circular was issued regarding the austerity measures. But it is a call by the party high command. As an obedient party worker, I preferred to travel economy class from Kerala today," senior Congress MP P C Chacko told IANS.
The ministers from the party were advised last month to practise austerity.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor were asked this week to move out of five-star hotels where they had been staying for over three months as their official bungalows were yet to be readied.
At a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) convened to discuss the drought situation and rising prices, party president Sonia Gandhi asked all party MPs, state legislators, ministers and other salaried post holders of the party to accept a 20 percent cut in their monthly salary for a year beginning September 1.
N S V Chitthan, an MP from Tamil Nadu, said the party asked the parliamentarians to contribute 20 percent of their salary to the government's special fund for the drought relief.
"I will reach Delhi tomorrow (Saturday) and contribute the amount," Chitthan told IANS.
On paper, a Lok Sabha member's monthly salary is Rs 16,000. But after counting the numerous allowances and perks it adds up to nearly Rs 42,000 a month.
"Sonia Gandhi has suggested that party workers and MPs adopt austerity measures so that their public and private lives reflect the concern for those who are less fortunate," said another MP from Maharastra.
"Giving up 20 percent of our salaries should not be a tough task," he added.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, an MP from West Bengal, described himself as "a lower middle-class MP" who has always led a simple life.
"Unlike the MPs from the north and west, most MPs from West Bengal, cutting across party lines, lead a very simple life," Chowdhury said.
At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was "upset" as he rejected some of his colleagues' arguments in favour of travelling business class, saying that these were unusual times and austerity measures were for only for a year.
Mukherjee on Friday said he had advised the ministers on austerity measures and not ordered them. The Finance Ministry had requested ministers and MPs entitled to executive class air travel to take the economy class in domestic flights. Ministers could travel by executive class in international flights, he said.
"I have suggested that in domestic services you should try to avoid (travelling executive class) because the distance is not far off. So far as international flights are concerned they can travel executive class instead of first class," Mukherjee said.
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