Government has approved an increase of ten thousand rupees in the allowances of Members of Parliament. Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet on Monday morning, the Information and Broadcasting Minister Mrs. Ambika Soni said, the increase of five thousand rupees each will be in the Office and constituency allowances of the MPs. Earlier, the Cabinet hiked the salaries of MPs from 16 thousand rupees per month to 50 thousand rupees. The opposition parties like the RJD, Samajwadi Party, JDU and some other parties had demanded that the government should accept the recommendations of a Joint Committee of Parliament to hike the MPs salaries to 80 thousand and one rupee, which is a rupee above the salary of Secretaries in the Government of India. The issue had been raised in Parliament leading to repeated adjournments after which Mr. Pranab Mukherjee had called a meeting of the leaders of the political parties on Saturday where the issue was resolved.