Patna,(BiharTimes): The Jitan Ram Manjhi cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal allowing all former chief ministers to keep eight personal assistants throughout their life, besides enhancing allowances of ministers, official sources said.

Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, Rabri Devi, Ram Sundar Das and Satish Prasad Singh could keep a private secretary, two clerks, four peons and a driver.

The cabinet also gave its nod to a proposal to increase the allowances of the ministers. The daily allowance of a minister has been doubled from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000.

The amount of monthly guest allowance for a cabinet minister was enhanced from Rs 18,500 to Rs 25,000.

For a minister of state, the guest allowance was increased from Rs 17,500 to Rs 24,000 per month and for a deputy minister from Rs 17,000 to Rs 23,500, the source added.

The cabinet gave its green signal to 45 proposals of various departments.