Information obtained through RTI reveals that 157 legislators and 48 officials who visited foreign countries in 2009 (costing a whopping Rs 4.3 cr) haven't bothered to prepare a study report.
For the full report in the TOI, click here.
Now, if you look at the listing, there doesn't appear to be any kind of a linkage between the business they are supposed to conduct and the respective destination. So, very obviously, these were all plain and straight-forward jaunts, with nobody even bothering to camouflage them as business trips. Now, I wouldn't like to grudge our Neta's and Babu's a few foreign trips, even if they are plain jaunts. In fact, one would like to believe that the exposures gained during these trips would open up them thinking to adopting more citizen friendly ways as are prevalent in most European countries, which are their favoured destinations. Unfortunately, however, that doesn't appear to be the case. Very likely these are all totally packaged by the travel agents, and the Neta's and Babu's are rarely required to make any arrangements by themselves. Well, back home also they have their chaprasi's for such work. On the whole, all that's gained are 'sweet memories' of scenic places for the Neta's and Babu's, some bits of which they perhaps can't tell their family members even.
Muralidhar Rao
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