Financial Express: Lucknow: Saturday,
April 23, 2016.
Mallya, 61,
received Rs.50,000 as Rajya Sabha MP’s salary and Rs.20,000 per month as
constituency allowance between July 1, 2010, and September 30, 2010.
Liquor baron
Vijay Mallya may be a billionaire, but he did not hesitate to claim amounts as
little as Rs.20,000 as perks to which he was entitled to as a Rajya Sabha MP, a
reply to an RTI querry has revealed.
In response
to a Right to Information query by a Bareilly-based activist Mohammad Khalid
Jeelani, the Rajya Sabha secretariat disclosed that the liquor baron convicted
in a dud cheque case and facing a non-bailable warrant for defaulting on bank
loans of around 9,000 crore regularly pocketed Rs.50,000 per month as a
parliamentarian’s salary as well as other perks like constituency allowance and
telephone reimbursements.
Jeelani told
IANS that he was “shocked by the findings as Mallya was known for his
flamboyant lifestyle ‘living life kingsize'”.
The reply
also revealed that while Mallya had not availed of any airfare reimbursements,
he happily availed of all other perks and emoluments as member of the upper
house of parliament.
Mallya, 61,
received Rs.50,000 as Rajya Sabha MP’s salary and Rs.20,000 per month as
constituency allowance between July 1, 2010, and September 30, 2010. He also
pocketed the enhanced sum of Rs.45,000 under this head ever since.
The
billionaire also drew Rs.6,000 per month toward office expenses in the same
period and Rs.15,000 thereafter.
Mallya also
raised a bill of Rs.1.73 lakh on calls from his official phone number. Upto
50,000 local calls are free for a Rajya Sabha MP.
However, he
did not raise any bills against water and power consumptions and medical
expenses.
Mallya was
elected to the upper house in 2002 as an Independent member from his home state
Karnataka with Congress and Janata Dal-Secular support.
In 2010, he
was re-elected for a second term, this time with the backing of the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) and the JD-S. His tenure will end in July.
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