New Delhi: As per a study released on Monday, the average annual income of sitting members of Legislative Assembly or MLAs across the country is Rs. 24.59 lakh and in all, Karnataka tops having an average of more than Rs. 1 crore per annum.

As per the fresh report from the Association for Democratic Reforms and the National Election Watch, the lowest average annual income is that of Chattisgarh MLAs at around Rs. 5.4 lakh.

The report, apart from bringing facts of MLA’s income in the country, also showed the huge gap among the genders with the average income of men to be more than double the income than that of women.

Moreover, the astounding facts put by the report is that the MLA’s who declared themselves to be illiterate receive an average annual self-income of Rs. 9.31 lakh. Along with that, they have declared their profession as business or agriculture.

The advocacy group who call for electoral reforms have asserted that they have analyzed self-declared affidavits of about 3,145 out of the total 4,086 sitting MLAs across the country. As per the report, a total of 941 MLAs has not declared their income yet, so they were included in the report, which is primarily focused on the annual self-income of the sitting MLAs only.

The average income of 3,145 sitting MLAs was pegged at Rs. 24.59 lakh and as a matter of fact, those MLAs who belong to the Southern region have the highest average annual income of about Rs. 51.99 lakh.

The Eastern region MLAs numbering 614, have got the lowest average annual income of Rs. 8.53 lakh.

If the report is seen in the state-wise, the ADR said Karnataka’s 203 MLAs, who were analyzed, have got the highest average annual income of Rs. 111.4 lakh, which is followed by the state of Maharashtra’s Rs. 43.4 lakh.

The MLAs from Chattisgarh, of whom 63 were analyzed, have got the lowest average annual income of Rs. 5.4 lakh and this is followed by Rs. 7.4 lakh of Jharkhand.

As per the report, 55 or around 2 percent of the total 3,145 MLAs analyzed have not mentioned about their profession in their submitted affidavits.

Around 771 or 25 percent out of them, have declared their business to be their profession and around 758 or 24 percent MLAs as an agriculturist or farmer.

A total of 13 percent or 397 out of those MLAs have declared their profession to be agriculture or farming and business and their highest average annual income are about Rs. 57.81 lakh.

A total of 1 percent of them were listed to be holding real estate business and action filmmaking category. But they are among the highest paid profession categories with an average annual income of Rs. 39.69 lakh and Rs. 28.48 lakh, respectively.

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