Context: Lok Sabha Speaker has announced that from the upcoming session, the subsidy for the Parliament canteen will be scrapped.

• The low rate of food in the Parliament canteen has often attracted controversy, with critics objecting to lawmakers enjoying a dirt-cheap meal at the taxpayers’ expense.
• Others have pointed out that the subsidy doesn’t benefit just MPs, as a host of other Parliament staff and security personnel also take their meals at the canteen.
• However, in 2019, all MPs had “unanimously” decided to do away with the subsidy.

Expenses on subsidy

• The Lok Sabha Secretariat could annually save more than Rs 8 crore with the subsidy coming to an end.
• The Parliament canteen had for the past 52 years been run by Northern Railway, whose officials said the annual revenue from Parliament catering was to the tune of Rs 15 to Rs 18 crore.
• The Northern Railway would be paid whatever cost it incurred on running the canteen from the Ministry of Finance through Parliament.
• From this year, the catering will be done by Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC).
• A major furore over the subsidy had erupted in 2015, when a reply to an RTI query by activist Subhash Agrawal revealed that the canteen got a subsidy of Rs 14 crore every year.

Was all the amount being spent on MPs’ food?

• Apart from food, the subsidy is used for other expenses, like salaries of canteen staff.
• Also, many other people apart from the MPs use the canteen.

Demand for scrapping the subsidy

• In the wake of the severe criticism following the RTI reply, then-BJD MP Baijyant Panda wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, that the food subsidy extended to MPs be removed “to raise public trust in lawmakers”.
• Subsequently in 2016, the prices were revised after a gap of six years, and it was decided the canteen would be run on a “no profit and no loss basis”.

Will the subsidy be removed for everyone?

• The move could hit hard the hundreds of employees and media personnel who come to Parliament.
• It would be unfair to expect them to pay high charges, and suggested that the subsidy should be withdrawn only for the parliamentarians.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-how-much-does-the-govt-spend-on-parliament-canteen-subsidy-7153304/

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