Author: Subhash Mishra
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 13, 2019
URL:      https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/up-treasury-has-paid-i-t-dues-of-all-cms-ministers-since-1981/articleshow/71104319.cms

A four-decade-old Uttar Pradesh law puts the tax burden of the chief minister and his council of ministers on the state exchequer as they are deemed to be "poor" and “cannot pay income tax from their own meagre earnings”.

While many of these ministers, going by the affidavits they file during elections, own movable and immovable assets worth crores of rupees and love flashing their wealth by acquiring swanky SUVs, it is the state, ranked among the poorer ones, which picks up the tax bill.

The law, Uttar Pradesh Ministers’ Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Act, 1981, was enacted when V P Singh was chief minister. UP has, since then, witnessed 19 chief ministers — including Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party, Mayawati of Bahujan Samaj Party, Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh of BJP and Narain Dutt Tewari of Congress — and nearly 1,000 ministers from different parties since then, up to the incumbent CM Yogi Adityanath.
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'MANTRIS POOR, GET MEAGRE PAY'

UP Ministers' Salaries, Allowances & Miscellaneous Act was passed in 1981 when VP Singh was chief minister

When the Bill was being debated in the state assembly, Singh had said that most of the ministers were from a poor background and got meagre salaries

UP has seen 19 CMs and nearly 1,000 ministers since the Act was passed in 1981

This year, the UP council of ministers' total income tax bill, picked up by the state treasury, worked out to Rs 86 lakh
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While getting the bill passed by the state assembly then, Singh had told the House that the state government should bear the income tax burden as most ministers were from poor backgrounds and had meagre incomes.

A section of the Act says, “Every minister and minister of state shall be entitled, throughout term of his office, to a salary of one thousand rupees per month. Every deputy minister shall be entitled, throughout the term of his office, to a salary of six hundred and fifty rupees per month.

“The salary referred to in sub-sections (1) and (2) shall be exclusive of the tax payable in respect of such salary (including perquisites) under any law relating to income tax for the time being in force, and such tax shall be borne by the state government.”

Even members of the Yogi government have had their income tax deposited from the state treasury in the last two financial years. This financial year, the income tax bill of Adityanath and his council of ministers was around Rs 86 lakh and was paid from the state treasury.