Uttar Pradesh spent Rs 1.06 Cr on ‘boycotted’ foreign visit

Lucknow: The Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh spent Rs1.06 crores on a foreign visit that did not even serve its purpose.

According to the reply received on an RTI query, the state government spent Rs 1, 06, 28,338 on the USA visit of the Chief Minister and his entourage, where the government was supposed to make a presentation on the holding of the Kumbh Mela in the prestigious Harvard University.

The visit in April 2013 ended in a fiasco when senior UP minister for urban development Mohd Azam Khan, who accompanied the CM, was subjected to security check and he raised an alarm over the ‘insult’.

Following the ‘insult’, the CM decided to boycott the program at Harvard and returned home with his 11- member entourage.

RTI activist Sanjay Sharma who heads an NGO ‘Tahrir’, said that in response to his RTI query, the Sachivalaya administration department had informed him that a sum of Rs 52. 5 lakhs was spent on the air fare on the two day tour and Rs 53.7 lakhs was paid as hotel bills.