On Wednesday, Edappadi Palaniswami, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu declared in an assembly that the salaries of the State MLAs have been increased from Rs. 55,000 per month to Rs. 1,50,000 per month. Even the pension of the MLAs has increased from Rs. 12,000 to Rs. 20,000 per month.
In addition to it, the MLA Local Area Development Fund has also been increased from Rs. 2 crores to Rs. 2.5 crores.
Analysts claimed that it is not reasonable to expect the corruption to go down if the legislators are not paid their market value as the hike in salaries comes at a time of agrarian distress in the State.
In the meantime, the distressed farmers in the State have been protesting for farm loan waivers due to the crippling agrarian crisis.
On Monday, almost 100 farmers from the State had turned up at Jantar Mantar again to express their demands. Following the assurances from the government in April this year, they have suspended their 41 day protest in Delhi.
They want sufficient compensation for the agricultural produce, crop insurance to individual farmers and also linking of rivers to address the issue of the water crisis.
The farmers are now objecting to the MLAs pay hike saying, “We are abandoned by our Netas.”
The President of the National South Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association, P. Ayyakannu stated that the farmers have decided to continue their protest for a minimum of 100 days, braving the monsoon.
“Both the State and the Central governments did not satisfy the promises they have made to us. They had assured us that our mortgaged jewelry would not be sold. However, the banks have started selling the jewelry. Now, they are going to sell our land as well,” Ayyakannu said a popular news channel.
“We had no other option but to restart our protest as the Centre and the Tamil Nadu governments have breached our trust. Due to the water crisis and the drought in the State, the farmers are under a huge financial burden. We are almost destroyed and we do not care if we will die protesting here,” he added.
