Junkets Were Pleasure Trips, Says RTI Reply

The New Indian Express: Mangalore: Sunday, 04 May 2014.

Information sought under RTI has revealed that foreign tours undertaken by members of Legislature committees and officials were mere pleasure trips, as no ‘good practices’ had been implemented to benefit tax-payers in the state.

Puttur-based RTI activist Dr C Nithyananda Pai, who had sought information on previous foreign tours under the RTI  in January this year, informed that previous BJP government broke a convention of sorts by conducting as many as two study tours to  Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, Austria and Dubai.

The two jaunts, which incurred a whopping `9 crore, including `1,99,82,658 incurred by officials accompanying members of committees, was borne by the government.

Of the 14 Legislature committees, only three never took part in any foreign tours.

Among the 11 committees that took part in the study-tours, four committees are yet to submit a report to the Speaker.

Pai, in his RTI application had sought details on the foreign tours, members who took part in the jaunts, copies of study-tour reports and projects, schemes or best practices that were implemented in the state based on the recommendations of these reports.

Pai told Express reports submitted to Speaker were ordinary and comparable to essays on local tours written by schoolchildren.

A report by a committee revealed that the Leaning tower of Pisa’s tilt is at 0.04 degrees and would crash one day. The committee was oblivious to the fact that the tower was straightened by 16 inches and would not crash for the next 300 years.

Current  Dakshina Kannada district-in-charge Minister B Ramanath Rai, after visiting Europe observed  in the report that people in India, like the UK, should stop expecting everything for free.’Another team had recommended constructing a railway station in the Himalayas on the lines of Jungfraujoch (Europe’s highest railway station) after visiting it, to attract more tourists.

“According to existing guidelines, number of officials accompanying members should not exceed more than three. But in the 2013 jaunt, seven officials, including personal assistant of the speaker, deputy speaker had accompanied the members,” Pai said. All the reports were similar recommending civic discipline, good public transport, scientific waste management, attractive parks among others. To a main query, committees revealed that none of the best practices recommended to the government were implemented so far.

Will the guidelines being drafted by a committee, set up by Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, end the masquerading of jaunts as study-tours?.

One Govt Different Response

Though the RTI activist posed the same question to all 14 committees of state legislature, different committees responded in different ways . If some committees shared information free of cost, three committees shared copies of reports after the fee of ` two per copy was paid. As many as four committees, including committee on welfare of SC/ST, which was part of a jaunt, demanded and collected even postage fee.