Odisha government on Wednesday announced an increase in the remuneration and allowances of Mayors, Deputy Mayors, Chairpersons, Vice-Presidents, Corporators and Councillors of five Municipal Corporations, 48 Municipalities and 68 Notified Area Councils (NAC) of the state.
The hike has been made by amending the recommendations of the 5th State Finance Commission as well as the Odisha Municipal Corporation Rules, 2004 and the Odisha Municipality Rules- 1953.
After the announcement, Mayors of municipal corporations, who used to get Rs 8,000 as remuneration earlier, will now get Rs 50,000 per month. Similarly, the honorarium of deputy mayors has been increased from Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 per month. The remuneration of the municipal council chairman has been increased from Rs 1,500 to Rs 15,000 per month while the deputy chairman's remuneration has been increased from Rs 1,200 to Rs 10,000 per month.
The Odisha government also announced an increase in the monthly remuneration of NAC chairpersons from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000 and the monthly remuneration of NAC Deputy Chairman from Rs 800 to Rs 7,500.
The municipal corporation corporators used to get Rs 7,00 as allowance for each meeting, which has now been increased to Rs 2,000. The allowances of councillors of various municipal councils and NACs have been increased from Rs 150 to Rs 500. Apart from this, members of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Corporation will also get an allowance of Rs 200 per day during the meeting.
Government also announced ex-gratia assistance for elected representatives of municipalities. In case of death, the assistance has been made Rs 2 lakh while in case of complete and partial disability, it has been made Rs 2 lakh and Rs 1 lakh respectively.
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For this, the state government will bear an annual expenditure of Rs 4.76 crore.
At present, 1696 councillors are working in various municipalities and NACs of the state while 244 corporators are working in the municipal corporations.