FACT CHECK: Forget hike, MPs face 30 % pay cut

Many netizens claim that the news is recent. The report states that the Union Cabinet has approved a hike in MP allowances.

The archived version of the post is saved here.

However, NewsMeter found that this clipping is old and no hike has been announced recently.

FACT CHECK:

We performed a reverse image search and found several tweets with the same news clipping from 2018. This indicates that the clipping is not recent.

According to 2018 reports by BUSINESS STANDARD and ECONOMIC TIMES, the Union Cabinet approved to increase the allowance by Rs 40,000 per month (55 percent hike). The MP's would be entitled to Rs 70,000 per month as constituency allowance instead of Rs 45,000 per month.

Apart from this, we found reports by TIMES OF INDIA and HINDUSTAN TIMES from 2020 that state that the MPs faced a pay cut due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The Union Cabinet decided that a 30 percent reduction in salaries, allowances, and pensions would take place. The money saved would be utilized to fight coronavirus.

"Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill to reduce the salaries of MPs by 30% for one year "to meet the exigencies" arising out of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Opposition leaders cutting across political lines supported the bill to reduce MPs' salary by 30% but spoke unequivocally against the temporary scrapping of MPLAD funds for two years", reads the HINDUSTAN TIMES report.

Therefore, old news clipping of MP salary hike has been falsely shared as recent. Instead, MPs now face a 30 percent pay cut.