The
Indian Express: New Delhi: Sunday, 02 August 2015.
Bills of 27
Lok Sabha MPs, who stayed at the Ashok Hotel in New Delhi during the last one
year, have not been approved by the Lok Sabha Secretariat since these MPs had
been allotted government accommodation but chose to stay on at the hotel for
one reason or the other. They together ran up a bill over Rs 5.69 crore by
overstaying.
According to
information obtained by The Sunday Express under the Right to Information Act
from the Directorate of Estates under the Ministry of Urban Development, the
directorate, which arranges accommodation for MPs on the request of the Lok
Sabha Secretariat, paid over Rs 24 crore for the period May 16, 2014 to May 31,
2015 for the stay of over 120 MPs at the Ashok Hotel.
But bills
over Rs 5.69 crore have been kept pending or are being re-processed since these
were “not approved” by the Lok Sabha Secretariat. With Rs 10.34 lakh
outstanding, Lok Jan Shakti Party MP Rama Kishore Singh tops the list of 27.
Sources in
Directorate of Estates and Lok Sabha Secretariat said most bills are for the
duration when these MPs were not entitled to stay at a hotel since they had
been allotted accommodation. Some MPs did not shift to the allotted houses
because they wanted allotments of their choice, others did not move in because
the allotted houses had not been furnished to their liking, and still others
said the allotted accommodation was not “habitable”.
Sources in
Lok Sabha Secretariat said some MPs, who had overstayed, vacated the Ashok
Hotel accommodation after Arjun Ram Meghwal, chairman of the housing committee,
wrote two letters.
The
information provided by the directorate has this list of unpaid Asok Hotel
bills of MPs: Rama Kishore Singh (Rs 10.34 lakh), Mohanji Kalyanji Bhai
Kundariya (Rs 5.76 lakh), Mahesh Sharma (Rs 5.34 lakh), Babul Supriyo (Rs 4.57 lakh),
Bidyut Baran Mahato (Rs. 3.81 lakh), P Ravindra Babu (Rs 3.81 lakh), V K Singh
(Rs 3.74 lakh), Upendra Kushwaha (Rs 3.64 lakh), Krishan Pal Gurjar (Rs 3.64
lakh), Manoj Tiwari (Rs 2.62 lakh), Manoj Sinha (Rs 2.02 lakh), B B Patil (Rs
1.95 lakh), B Subhash Ramrao (Rs 1.44 lakh), Kalraj Mishra (Rs 59,354),
Radheshyam Biswas (Rs 59,354), Anupriya Patel (Rs 54,509), Kunwar Haribansh
Singh (Rs 54,509), Anshul Verma (Rs 50,875), Bhola Singh (Rs 42,396), A P
Jithender Reddy (Rs 33,916), Dalpat Singh Paraste, Manohar Untwal, Ranjit Singh
Brahmpura, Sirajuddin Ajmal, Thota Narasimham, Yashwant Singh (Rs 8,479 each)
and Riti Pathak (Rs 8,450).
Reached for
comments, most MPs said they were “unaware” that their Ashok Hotel bills had
not been approved.
BJP MP Manoj
Tiwari said: “Nobody told me this fact.” A spokesperson for Upendra Kushwaha,
MoS for HRD, said: “We are yet to receive any such bill.” The political attache
to MoS V K Singh said: “Minister had vacated the Asok Hotel room even before he
was allotted government accommodation. These bills may be wrong.”
Mohanji
Kalyanji Bhai Kundariya, MoS Agriculture, said: “I am still in Asok because the
house allotted to me is still not ready to live in. I am going to vacate the
hotel room very soon. I don’t know about the unapproved bill.” Manoj Sinha, MoS
Railways, and Anupriya Patel, Apna Dal MP, said they were not aware of the
unapproved bills.
Incidentally,
MoS Mahesh Sharma is in charge of the tourism department. The Asok Hotel is
under his ministry. Sharma’s spokesperson Rajeev Pathak said, “Minister did not
stay in the hotel for even a single day. The room was booked by the Lok Sabha
Secretariat but his staff was staying there, not the minister. Copy of the
unapproved bill is yet to reach the minister.”
Incidentally,
some MPs who availed of the transit accommodation facility have their own
houses in Delhi and NCR or represent constituencies in the area. According to
information provided under the RTI, the Directorate of Estates paid Rs 21.96
lakh for Maheish Girri, Rs 21.62 lakh for Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, Rs 18.23
lakh for Mahesh Sharma, Rs 16.36 lakh for Manoj Tiwari, Rs 8.56 lakh for Udit
Raj, Rs 2.62 lakh for Krishan Pal Gurjar, Rs 1.78 lakh for V K Singh for their
stay at the Asok Hotel during the transit period. A directorate official said:
“There is no violation of any rule here because they are entitled to it.”
.JPG)
.JPG)
