Whether it’s our politicians, elite businessmen, sports personalities – the VIP culture that exists in our country has become a rogue and is increasing. In fact, India has the highest number of VIPs in the world, who preferably get everything ahead of the normal Indians and that too with the money of taxpayers, and that is us; the common people.
India has more VIPs than any other country
Since the status of being a VIP is deeply desired in the Indian system, the actual number of so called VIPs in India is much higher. In 2015 Indian government considered to prepare a list of VIPs to get easy immigration at US airports, and initially, the government thought of keeping 2,000 odd names in the list which could go up to 15,000 in years to come.
Being VIPs, our politicians are far ahead than anyone. The population of 1.3 billion people is one excuse that we hear whenever the subject of a large number of VIPs arises in India, China is more populated than India but have lesser number of VIPs.
Meanwhile, in other countries, this isn’t the case. While checking the reports of the world, Britain reportedly has a total of 84 officially designated VIPs. France boasts 109 such personages, Japan 125, Germany 142, Australia 205, the United States 252, South Korea 282, Russia 312, and our neighbour China has a total of 435 designated VIPs.
Indian politicians, especially the MPs, CMs and other cabinet ministers in the states and even the MLA, Councillors and Sarpanch (Panchayat leader) of Gram Panchayats consider themselves VIPs. In 2015, India paid Rs 176 crore to its 543 Lok Sabha members in salaries and expenses which accounts to a massive Rs 2.7 lakh a month per Member of Parliament (MP).
An MP does not spend anything as the government takes care of their smallest bills and the taxes.
They get Rs 50,000 per month as salary, Rs 45,000 as constituency allowance, Rs 15,000 as office expenses and Rs 30,000 for secretarial assistance. When Parliament is in session, they get a daily allowance of Rs.2,000. MPs are also reimbursed for 34 flight trips and unlimited rail and road travel for the year on official business.
MPs get facilities in other countries too, but their engagement in their Parliaments is higher than their Indian counterparts. In other countries like UK and US, where the parliamentary system is quite similar to ours, MPs do get facilities, but they work and have an accountability, but in India, our VIP MPs live king size lives for not letting parliament function.
The recent example of the lavish life lived by these VIPs is the AirIndia’s unpaid bill of Rs 750 crore for flying VIPs, VVIPs, and other officials.
Their security is always a concern, but what about common people. On an average, there is one policeman over 253 Indians. But when it comes to VIPs, on an average 1 VIP has 17 policemen or security officials to safeguard him.
Going purely by the numbers one can easily assess the security of people is being compromised at the cost of keeping our VIPs safe.
Source: India Times