Bangalore: With legislators claiming that going on a foreign jaunt was their privilege, several questions are being raised about ethical utilisation of the tax payers’ money.
Even as Chief Minister SidÂdaÂramaiah defended the Legislature Committee’s foreign trip, several top bureaucrats in the state felt it was time the legislature came up with rules and regulations to ensure that the Legislature Committees table tour reports in either of the Houses.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a top bureaucrat said, “No doubt legislators have privilege to go on a trip, this has been the norm for the last several decades.
Till a JD(S)-BJP coalition caÂme to power in 2006, legislators were entitled to go on domestic tours anywhere in India every year or till their tenure came to an end. But in 2006, a section of legislators pressed hard to pass an Act enabling them to go on foreign trips too. As a result, legislators are eligible to two foreign jaunts and a domestic trip too.”
The source added that the Act, from the beginning, does not mention the need for legislators to submit any report once they return from their trips. “Though these trips are dubbed as study tours, they are essentially exÂcursion trips. As a result, every time a committee heads for a trip it atÂtracts controversy,” the source observed.
Apart from this, the legislators too allegedly fudge air-ticket prices by conniving with travel agents in order to ensure one of their family membeÂrs accompanies them during the foreign trip.
The source pointed out a similar junket of 100 MLAs in different batches to Russia, South America and Scandinavian countries when large parts of the state were reeling under drought during BJP rule last year, which set off a public outcry, forcing then chief minister Jagadish Shettar to ask a batch of legislators to call off their trip and fly back home.
“During these trips another controversy too erupted when a section of legislators took their wives with them. But the controversy subsided with these legislators proving that bills and fare for their respective wives was borne by them,” the source explained.
On a positive note, a senior leader tÂoÂÂld this newspaper on the condition of aÂnonymity that the concept of constructing flyovers in Bengaluru to ease traffic congestion was a direct result of one such foreign trip by ministers during the Janata Dal regime in 1989-94.
“A contingent of ministers along with bureaucrats had gone on a foreign trip, which too attracted its share of controversy then. But soon after these ministers returned from a China tour, they suggested to then Chief Minister, J.H. Patel to construct fÂlyovers in Bengaluru, which apÂpealed to him most,” the leader explained
