Members of Parliament may finally be set to get their due. A Joint Parliamentary Committee has recommended a five-fold hike in the salaries of members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha from Rs 16,000 per month to Rs 80,000. According to media reports, the committee, in a report submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, outlined a mechanism to equate the salaries of MPs with government officers of the rank of secretaries. The report recommended a salary equal to that of the secretary plus one rupee. Besides, the mechanism would ensure that the salaries of MPs would automatically rise in tandem with those of the secretaries. This is indeed as it should be.

The MPs carry the burden of hopes and aspirations of a billion plus people. They not only represent their individual constituencies but also need to spend quality time in Parliament discussing issues of national importance and in legislating for the nation at large. So they are required to maintain a fine balance between local aspirations and national needs. In any case, they are a lot more in the public eye and are much more accountable than the bureaucrats. And above all, unlike the bureaucrats, they are required to renew their mandate every few years.   

Precisely because they are so poorly paid, though, MPs are increasingly losing the appetite for quizzing the executive without a monetary incentive or even for engaging in serious discussion over seemingly intractable issues such as rising prices or starvation deaths.

This is surely an avoidable embarrassment for the Indian democracy. A hike in salaries of the MPs is the solution.

Or is it, really? What is there to ensure that MPs will start discharging their duty once they start getting proper wages? Have they really abdicated their responsibility as legislators because they have been poorly paid?

So, the question remains: do MPs really deserve a five-fold salary hike?