As many as six Members of Parliament (including one from the Rajya Sabha) — five of them from the ruling Congress - have Rs. 19,78,027 as outstanding towards payment of telephone bills.

Of the amount, Rs.10,18,098 is due towards payment for Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (in Delhi) and Rs.9,59,929 for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (in their constituency).

According to information received by Right to Information activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal, Janata Dal (United) Lok Sabha member from Hajipur (Bihar) Ram Sunder Das has an outstanding as high as Rs.9,49,866 and of this Rs.6,11,053 is due for MTNL alone. Another Lok Sabha member from Kalahandi in Odisha and belonging to the Congress Bhakta Charan Das has kept Rs.3,31,020 as pending dues.

The other Congress MPs are: G.V. Harsha Kumar (Amalapuram in Andhra Pradesh) — Rs.2,06,880, M. Krishna Swamy (Arani in Tamil Nadu) — Rs.3,19,740, Harsh Vardhan (Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh) – Rs. 36,744 and Rajya Sabha member Narender Budhania (Rajasthan) — Rs.1,33,777.

399 ex-MPs too in it

It was also revealed that 399 former MPs, including some former Union Ministers and a former Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, still owed MTNL/BSNL a whopping Rs. 7,10,88,719 as dues for the telephone usage made in New Delhi and in their constituencies.

Interestingly some of them even died without settling the bills. Due to non-payment, the telephone companies have imposed interest on their dues and in a particular case the interest amount alone has come to as high as Rs.1,77,046.