Vishwajeet tops list in spending public funds
PANJIM, MARCH 23
It appears Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane has beaten his cabinet
colleagues and even the Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in spending public
money while flying outside Goa for 2008-09.
As per a written reply given to the Assembly on Tuesday for unstarred
question tabled by Leader of the Opposition Manohar Parrikar, it was
revealed Rane’s expenditure on air trips outside Goa totalled to Rs
11.04 lakh.
Rane made a total of 31 trips – mostly Goa to Mumbai and
Goa-Delhi-Mumbai. Whereas Kamat’s expenditure on airfare for the year
has been
Rs 7,38,819 who regularly travels by economy class.
But it looks like his cabinet colleagues prefer to travel business class
that includes Home Minister Ravi Naik. However number of trips made by
him during 2008-09 has been comparatively less.
Forest Minister Filip Neri Rodrigues’ airfare expenditure has been the
least. It was around Rs 25,000 last year and Rs 14,000-odd this
financial year.
Two o ther ministers whose air travel expenditure is on lower side are
Power Minister Aleixo Sequeira and Sports Minister Babu Azgaonkar. It’s
around Rs 59,000 for the current year.
Other ministers such as Rane, Joaquim Alemao, Churchill Alemao,
Ramkrishna Dhavalikar, Antanasio Monseratte mostly travelled by business
class. This also demonstrated that austerity mantra given by Congress
President Sonia Gandhi has been conveniently forgotten by some.
Tourism Minister Mickky Pacheco was the only minister besides Dayanand
Narvekar (as then minister for Finance and IT), who made foreign trips.
In 2007, Pacheco went to London with airfare expenditure of Rs 3,32,637,
in 2008-09 his Mumbai-London-Mumbai trip cost the State exchequer Rs
6,66,875 whereas he made two trips. And the air fare expenditure came to
about Rs 532,171.
http://www.oheraldo.in/news/Local%20News/Vishwajeet-tops-list-in-spending-public-funds/35007.html
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