Date:18/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/18/stories/2008041858600200.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Fancy wages, a privilege of only ‘neta log’

It’s not only prices that are shooting up in Hyderabad. Even the wages have registered a phenomenal increase.

But only in respect of high-profile politicians offering to do anything and everything to collect funds. If a politician worked as a ward boy and took a wheel-chair bound patient into a hospital, he got a lakh of rupees as wages.

For mopping the floor at a showroom, he was gifted a high-end electronic good.

Somewhere, another politician took the scissors and the comb in hand and gave a boy a haircut. A former Minister worked in a shop; a party president worked in a factory to collect funds.

It makes one wonder how did their ‘temporary employers’ have so much cash ready when the politicians descend with a full entourage of cameramen in tow.

Like the cricket matches, are these wages fixed in advance?

KSR