JAMMU: Launching a blistering attack on the State Government for doling bonanza to ministers and MLAs by doubling their CDF, Housing Loan, Car Loan, Sitting Allowance and TA/DA, besides salaries and other perks scores of Panther activists led by Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP, Balwant Singh Mankotia State President and Yash Paul Kundal State President Young Panthers along with other leaders staged a protest at Exhibition Ground here on Wednesday seeking revocation of the announcement which could otherwise breed corruption, loot and plunder of the tax payers money.
Amid raising anti-government slogans, the angry protestors torched the effigy of BJP-PDP alliance.
Expressing his shock and chagrin over the extra ordinary and prodigious hike in the pecuniary benefits to the ministers and MLAs as announced by the Chief Minister in the Assembly, Harsh described the sops as organised loot of the tax payers’ money. He expressed his dismay over the hefty doles to the legislators in the form of unprecedented enhancement in their discretionary grants and all other perks. He said that it was scandalous that the MLAs CDF should be doubled to Rs 3 crore, Housing Loan to Rs. 20 lakh, Car Loan to Rs. 5 lakh besides doubling the TA and DA at a time when the State was passing through the worst ever financial crisis. He said that only recently the BJP-PDP Government had doubled the emoluments of legislators and those of their PAs. He said that while the government was averse to the hardships faced by the common man, the law makers were voting themselves whopping hikes in their salaries and perks.
Describing the government decision as a gross violation of propriety, probity and morality, Singh said that such moves had taken sheen off the anti- corruption slogans of the government.
He further said that corruption takes roots when there is conflict of interests and the greatest conflict of interests arose when the legislators gifted themselves massive hikes in their perks.
Pointing towards the pathetic plight of the unemployed and underemployed educated youth of the State, Singh said that the incumbent government framed the most obnoxious ‘New Recruitment Policy’ for them on less than one third of their legitimate salary on grounds of financial constraints. He further pointed out that several sections of employees including DRWs, casual, Need based and other workers of PHE, I and FC, R and B, M and RE, NHM, ReTs, temporary teachers and Contractual lecturers were on the roads seeking the release of their nominal wages which had been unpaid for periods ranging from eight months to two years.
He said that enhancement and doubling of CDF of legislators at a stage when its abuse had been widely reported with an enquiry having been ordered in several cases into ‘CDF for Vote’ scam by Governor, was highly egregious besides being scandalous.
Among those who spoke on the occasion included Rajesh Padgotra, Gagan Pratap Singh, Nirmal Kishore, Purshotam Parihar, Raj Kumar Gupta, K.K Sharma, Arun Khajuria, Udhayveer, Mohinder Singh, Varinder Thakur, Khajoor Singh, Aditya Hans, Rajesh Gondhi, Shankar Singh Sanju, Satvir, Narinder Sharma, Sansar Chand besides others.