Patna,(BiharTimes): The Bihar cabinet on Tuesday doubled the monthly allowance of local body representatives. It would come into effect from April this year.

According to the Cabinet Coordination Department principal secretary Brajesh Mehrotra the government would incur an additional expenditure of Rs 194.88 crore per annum with the increase in the allowance.

The zilla parishad president will now be entitled to get Rs 8,000 a month (basic salary) along with other allowances. The deputy chief of the zilla parishad will be entitled to get Rs 6,000 every month.

Similarly, panchayat samiti pramukh and its deputy will get Rs 6000 and Rs 3000 per month, respectively. The allowance for mukhiya and sarpanch has been raised to Rs 1,200 each, while their deputies will receive Rs 600 each. The daily allowance of the PRIs' representatives have been hiked to Rs 200, while the travel allowance has been hiked at Rs 10 per km.

There are in all 8,442 mukhiyas, 8,442 sarpanchs, 11,534 panchayat samiti members and 1,162 district board members in Bihar.

The pre-election exercise is being interpreted politically in the state.

It needs to be recalled that in September last around 2,000 rural representatives from across the state had protested before chief minister Nitish Kumar, alleging high-handedness of officials and rampant corruption in the implementation of development schemes.

The cabinet also taken a policy decision to absorb all the retrenched employees of 1991 census. Besides, the government has released Rs 3.42 crore for payment of current as well as arrear salary of 233 contract teachers who retired.

As part of the agriculture road map in the state, the cabinet has released Rs 4.05 crore for payment of scholarship to students enrolled in different agricultural universities in the state for a period of 2013-14 to 2016-17.