Mutton curry – Rs.20

Boiled rice – Rs.4

Masala Dosa – Rs.6

Pizza – Rs.20

Chicken sandwich – Rs.6

No, this isn’t a prank. This is a part of the 95-item menu of the Parliament canteen. Recently, an RTI response revealed that the canteens have run a subsidy of a shocking Rs.14 crore in just a year between 2013 and 2014. Certain foods were sold at the price of only 1/10th the price of the raw materials.

On appeal of our Prime Minister, 5.5 lakh people gave up their LPG subsidy, we are now requesting our PM to remove subsidy from parliament canteen and ask 790 MPs to pay bill from their own pocket not from Indian exchequer. Our MPs already get salary which is 68 times the country’s average salary.

The canteens are managed by Northern Railway, and the day-to-day activities are monitored by the Joint Committee on Food Management in the Parliament House Complex. The money to feed the lawmakers, staff and others is met from the budget granted by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.

The RTI was filed by noted activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal on June 18. Reportedly, the food prices in the canteens were revised only twice since 1947. The RTI also revealed that Rs.60.7 crore was spent by the canteens in the last 5 years. The Rs. 14 crore subsidy is particularly irrational when the present Government is trying to cut subsidies across the board.

The Logical Indian community believes that our Parliamentarians must be subjected to the same prices as the rest of the nation. It is unreasonable that the canteen prices have changed only twice since Independence when the rest of us face changes in food products on almost a monthly basis.