Finance
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday announced an increase in the remuneration and allowances of the mayors, deputy mayors, chairmen, vice chairmen, corporators, and councilors of five metropolitan corporations, 48 municipal councils and 68 notified area councils (NACs) in the state.
The Fifth State Finance Commission’s recommendations and the modifications to the Odisha Municipal Corporation Rules of 2004 and 1953 have led to this rise.
The incentive that metropolitan corporation mayors previously received was Rs 8,000; however, this has since been increased to Rs 50,000 every month. Likewise, deputy mayors now receive a monthly salary of Rs 20,000 instead of Rs 5000. The salary of the chairman of the municipal council has raised from Rs 1,500 to Rs 15,000, and the chairman’s remuneration has been increased from Rs 1,200 to Rs 10,000.
The Chief Minister declared that the deputy chairman’s monthly gratuity would increase from Rs. 800 to Rs. 7,500 and the chairman’s gratuity would rise from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 10,000.
The Rs 2,000 meeting fee that the metropolitan corporators were previously receiving has been doubled to Rs 7,000. Councilors of different municipal councils and NACs now receive an allowance of Rs 5000 instead of Rs 1500. In addition, during the meeting, each member of the Metropolitan Corporation’s Standing Committee would receive a daily allowance of Rs 2000.
The implementation of ex-gratia support to the elected representatives of the urban regions has also been announced by the Chief Minister. In case of death, this amount of assistance is kept at Rs 2 lakh, while in case of total and partial disability, it is kept at Rs 2 lakh and Rs 1 lakh, respectively.
The state government will need to spend Rs 4.76 crore a year on this.
It is noteworthy that 244 corporators and 1,696 councilors are currently employed by the state’s municipalities and NACs.
