The government appears determined to get it right on the transparency scale – with further details on the salaries of the Prime Minister’s aides. An updated salary list of officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has revealed pension details of the top four functionaries in Manmohan Singh’s power pack .

The new list discloses that the PMO’s Big Four – adviser to the Prime Minister TKA Nair, national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon, special envoy S.K. Lambah and principal secretary to the Prime Minister Pulok Chatterji – are entitled to pension as well since they are retired civil servants. Chatterji gets a monthly pension of Rs.40,000 while the other officials draw a monthly pension of Rs.50,000 each. Read between the lines, it could be someone’s case that things are a little topsy-turvy at the top. The gross monthly emoluments of Nair, Menon and Lambah – the salary of Rs.1.11 lakh for their present assignments and pension – at Rs.1.61 lakh reveal they make more money than the PM himself. The monthly emoluments of Singh, who is head of government of the world’s largest democracy, is Rs.1.6 lakh, a shade less than three of his aides.

For the record, an earlier disclosure on their salaries by the PMO had said their monthly salary was Rs.1.13 lakh. Chatterji’s salary had earlier been shown as Rs.92,000. It has now been corrected to Rs.1,08,500. Justifying the changes, the updated salary list from the PMO also mentions that in some cases the total emoluments now include house rent and transport allowance. Incidentally, the updated list shows there are 17 PMO employees who draw both salary and monthly pension.

Among them are the personal secretary to the national security adviser K.N. Purswani whose gross emoluments includes a pension of Rs.11,161. S.B. Iyer, officer on special duty to minister of state in the PMO V. Narayanaswamy gets Rs.49,992 a month, apart from a pension of Rs.19,440. Senior personal secretary D.P. Parmar draws a pension of Rs.15,945.

source by india today