Fact check: This newspaper clipping on the hike of the MP grant is three years old

At one point, the center stares in anticipation of the high fuel prices, a newspaper clipping goes viral saying the government has approved the increase in MP grants.

The image of the Hindi newspaper clipping posted by Facebook users has the screaming headline, “Approval for Increasing MP Grant”. The report states that the Union Cabinet has approved the increase in various allowances of MPs. Netizens reacted strongly to this Facebook post, believing that the government had indeed increased MP grants.

India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that the newspaper clipping is from 2018 when the Union Cabinet increased 55 per cent in the monthly allowances for MPs. There has been no further increase in MP grants recently. On the contrary, MP grants and salaries were reduced last year due to the pandemic.

The archived version of the post is stored here.

No increase in MP grant

Using keyword search, we found that the image of the newspaper clipping went viral in 2018 when many users posted it on social media. Several news reports from February 2018 confirmed that the center did increase MP grants after approval by the Union Cabinet. According to these reports, the monthly allowances of the members of parliament (members of parliament) would increase by R 40,000 per month, while the Union Cabinet approved the increase of up to 55 percent.

No recent media report states that the central government has decided to further increase MP grants.

On the contrary, we found that MPs faced pay cuts and reduction of allowances last year due to the pandemic. On April 7, 2020, “The Economic Times” said that MPs should forfeit Rs 27,000 every month from their constituency and official grants. This was in addition to the reduction of monthly salaries by 30 percent.

Therefore, it can be confirmed that the viral image is of an old newspaper clipping and that there has been no recent increase in monthly allowances for MPs.