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India has doubled President Pratibha Patil's annual pay packet to 1.2 million rupees ($40,000), a modest rise compared with the 225 million rupees it costs each year to maintain her in a largely ceremonial post.
Alongside Patil, the salaries of the equally ceremonial vice-president and provincial governors - all of whom maintain lavish lifestyles in grandiloquent residences manned by scores of liveried staff - have also been increased substantially by the federal Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
While Vice-President M. Hamid Ansari, who performs the legislative function of heading Parliament's Rajya Sanbha or Upper House will receive 85,000 rupees a month - up from 45,000 rupees - the monthly salary of state governors has been more than doubled to 75,000 rupees.
The annual pension of India's two retired presidents is doubled to 600,000 rupees in addition to the lavish housing and personal staff they are routinely provided at great expense upon retirement.
"The establishment takes good care of its own, cosseting them in luxury and grandeur in a largely poverty-ridden society," former MP and newspaper columnist Kuldip Nayar said.
All senior Indian officials are sumptuously cosseted by the state in regal bungalows set in vast lawns and all serviced by state-paid household staff. In many instances, large fleets of expensive cars accompanied by elaborate security details are part of the overall package.
The Indian President's 340-room, red sandstone residence built initially as the colonial governor-general's seat in the 1930s, is akin to a mini township that costs 70 million rupees a year to maintain. The annual salary bill for its vast secretarial staff is 60 million rupees.
Set amidst 130ha, the estate boasts a private golf course, polo ground, tennis courts, a hospital and school for children of the household staff in addition to a bakery, a modern cinema hall and an elaborate swimming pool and squash court complex.
The annual allocation for its 900-odd liveried staff is 21.6 million rupees while 20 million rupees is meant for the gardens - that includes the exquisite 5ha Mughal wing - and 640,000 rupees for hospitality. There are 25 chefs.
The President has a fleet of luxury cars at her disposal besides horse-mounted bodyguards.
She has a "summer house" in the former Imperial capital, Shimla, in the Himalayas and another residence in Hyderabad in the south which together cost around 15 million rupees to maintain.
The socialist republic's presidential trappings are somewhat akin to those of former Viceroys.
Such luxury is incongruous in a country that is home to a third of the world's poorest.
A recent survey by the National Family Health Survey backed by Unicef, for instance, revealed that almost 46 per cent of the country's children under the age of 3 were undernourished.
And 86 per cent of working Indians earn less than 20 rupees (66c) a day. Only 0.4 per cent of 395 of 457 million workers in India employed in agriculture, construction, weaving and fishing have access to any form of social security.
