30 INDIA TODAY u FEBRUARY 18, 2008 FEBRUARY 18, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 31

FliersT

his is one high-flying government. In this globalised world, it isnow in the nature of official business to travel to different partsof the earth, making new friends, lesser enemies and influenc-ing people. As a rising economic power, it is perhaps morenecessary than ever before to make your presence felt at globalhigh tables and international conference podiums. But even bythat yardstick, the UPA Government would seem to be in an over-

drive or rather turbo-charged, its ministerial representatives raking upfrequent-flier miles at a frenetic pace, this, despite the Prime Minister’sOffice (PMO)supposedly cracking down on bureaucrats and ministers trav-elling abroad at the drop of a Gandhi topi. Whether it’s a case ofDemocracy on the Move or the New World Order, the perks of foreigntravel have never been so widely utilised.

Consider this. In the 1,287 days of the UPA Government till November30 last year, its ministers travelled an incredible 1 crore km (10 millionkm)-plus on trips abroad, official and personal, but mostly official. Itmeans that the ministers made more than 256 trips around the globe,considering the earth’s circumference of 40,008 km. Among the 71ministers (excluding the prime minister) who went on foreign trips dur-ing their tenure, 47 ministers spent over Rs 27 crore. The bill would bemuch higher, taking into account the fact that the other ministers did notprovide details of their expenditure. This, of course, does not include theexpenses incurred by Indian embassies abroad which run up substantialbills hiring limousines and providing other services to visiting ministers.At least 12 of the total 78 ministers travelled more than 2.5 lakh km eachin the last three-and-a-half years.

Not that they did anything illegal or shady: none of the trips (we hope!)

n By Shyamlal Yadav

Frequent

Seventy-one of the 78 UPA ministers (besides prime minister)have made 786 foreign trips spending about 3,798 days andtravelling 1.02 crore km in 1,287 days.

THE PERKS OFFOREIGN TRAVEL HAVE NEVER BEEN SO WIDELY UTILISED.THE MINISTERS OFTHE UPA TRAVELLEDAT WILL TO LOGENOUGH MILES TOCIRCLE THE EARTH256 TIMES.

Illustrations by RAM andSAURABH SINGH

cover story UPA MINISTERS

involved wives, mistresses or familyshopping on Fifth Avenue at government(read public) expense. They do, however,show that some ministers are literallyhigher than others. In fact, some spentmore time abroad on personal trips thanon official visits.

Using the Right To Information (RTI)procedure, INDIA TODAY has obtained a de-

tailed list of ministerial travel abroad dur-ing the UPA Government’s tenure and itmakes for fascinating reading. It wouldhave made better reading and comparativeassessment if we had access to similar tripsduring the NDA regime too, but the almost 10years that have passed since then meantthat it was a far more laborious and time-consuming process. In any event, it took

over four months and 59 RTI applications tovarious ministries apart from PMO and theCabinet Secretariat, before the informationcould be compiled and made available. Theair distances have been calculated in ap-proximation. Where the city was not men-tioned, the distance from Delhi to the capitalcity of the destination country was consid-ered. Expenses incurred were calculated onthe basis of the per diem allowance thatministers are entitled to, since the RTI pro-vided us information only about the numberof trips and the number of days that eachminister spent abroad. Here are some high-lights of foreign travel by the UPA ministers.

It may come as no great surprise butCommerce and Industry Minister KamalNath, last spotted in Davos, logged the max-imum mileage on foreign trips and createdsome sort of a record in the bargain. Hespent 424 days on 72 trips outside the coun-try, of which 27 days were spent on sixpersonal visits. A cool 14 months spentoutside India. He covered 10,08,162 km upto November 30, 2007 (enough to earnfrequent flier miles to make 20 free trips tothe US and back, assuming he flew firstclass) and the Government spent Rs 1.81

crore on his official visits. As commerceminister and head negotiator for India in theWorld Trade Organisation deliberations, heis obliged to travel abroad fairly frequently.And with trade and economic relations as-suming far greater importance, he is morevisible than the external affairs ministerwhen the prime minister goes abroad aswas the case recently in Beijing. The citieshe has visited most frequently, whether pri-vately or on official work, are London, KualaLumpur, Bangkok, New York, Paris andBrussels. In comparison, Finance MinisterP. Chidambaram spent a mere 118 days onoverseas visits, for which the Governmentpicked up a tab of Rs 1.45 crore.

Minister of State (MOS) for Civil Aviation(independent charge) Praful Patel made 41trips abroad of which 16 were official. Hechose to visit the US six times and the UKfive times, besides France and Belgium.Records show that the cities Patel visitedmost frequently in his personal capacity areLondon, Paris, New York, Singapore, KualaLumpur, Bangkok and Dubai. However,being a businessman of some standingwould explain why he spent more timeabroad on personal visits in comparison to

Kantilal BhuriaMoS for agriculture & consumer affairs Number of trips: 8Km travelled: 1,18,769 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 80.8 lakh

Santosh Mohan DevMinister for heavy ind & public enterprises Number of trips: 8Km travelled: 1,03,645 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 52 lakh

Shankersinh VaghelaMinister for textilesNumber of trips: 8Km travelled: 1,37,494 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Prem Chand GuptaMinister for corporate affairs Number of trips: 7Km travelled: 57,388 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

E. AhmadMoS for external affairs

Days as minister: 1,287

NUMBER OF TRIPS: 79

Official: 76

Personal: 3

DAYS ABROAD: 232

Official: 220

Personal: 12

Km travelled: 6,13,277

Official: 5,99,015 km

Personal: 14,262 km

OFFICIAL EXPENSES:

Rs 1.37 crore

In his over 2.36 lakh km travel abroad, Fatmi’s official visits areonly 3 but he has spent 181 days on his 14 personal trips.

Ahmad has spent 48 days in UAE during his 22 transit visits

though Middle-East comes under his ministerial jurisdiction.

Nath has covered over 10-lakh km,which could earn him enough frequentflier miles to make 20 free trips to theUS and back assuming he flew first class.

Kamal NathMinister for commerce and industryDays as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 72 Official: 66 Personal: 6DAYS ABROAD: 424Official: 397 Personal: 27Km travelled: 10,08,162 Official: 9,33,650 km Personal: 74,512 kmOFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 1.81 crore

Vayalar RaviMinister for overseas Indian affairs Number of trips: 18Km travelled: 2,83,036 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 1.14 crore

Mani Shankar AiyarMinister for panchayati raj Number of trips: 17Km travelled: 2,09,239 OFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 40 lakh*Some bills yet to be submitted

A. RajaMinister for communications and IT Number of trips: 12Km travelled: 1,89,994 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Vilas MuttemwarMoS for new and renewable energy (I.C)* Number of trips: 9Km travelled: 1,56,025 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 87.4 lakh*Independent Charge

Saif-ud-Din SozMinister for water resources Number of trips: 9Km travelled: 65,704OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 14.2 lakh

Prithviraj ChavanMoS in PMO Number of trips: 9Km travelled: 92,400 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Panabaka LakshmiMoS for health and family welfare Number of trips: 8Km travelled: 1,23,811 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 28.6 lakh

Fernandes’s previous ministry (statistics) has taken him to more foreign shores—Australia, Geneva, Italy, South Korea,Thailand (thrice) etc—than his present one.

M.A.A. Fatmi, MoS for human resource development

Oscar Fernandes, MoS (I.C.) for labour and employment

UPA MINISTERScover story

official—he spent 125 days on personal vis-its and 57 days on official visits. Patel, MOS

for Human Resource Development M.A.AFatmi and D. Purandeswari, Minister forInformation and Broadcasting PriyaRanjan Dasmunshi, Minister for Mines SisRam Ola, MOS for Petroleum and NaturalGas Dinsha J. Patel, Minister for CorporateAffairs Prem Chand Gupta and MOS for SteelAkhilesh Das were the ministers to haverecorded more days outside the country onpersonal visits in comparison to official vis-its. Fatmi travelled 14 days on official visitsbut clocked 181 days on personal visits. Intotal, he travelled 2,36,605 km (his ministrydid not provide details of the expenses), andcountries he visited most frequently on hispersonal expense were Malaysia,Singapore, the UK, France and China.Fatmi is from Railway Minister LaluPrasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal. The latter,incidentally, despite his new-found demand

as a speaker following the Railways successstory, does not belong to the club of frequentfliers. Dasmunshi took 38 days travellingabroad on personal visits, as against the 20days he spent overseas on official trips. Hetravelled 1,59,676 km in total and spent Rs17 lakh on his official tours. His cities ofpreference included Kuala Lumpur, LosAngeles, London, Switzerland and Paris.

MOS for External Affairs E. Ahmad spentmore time abroad than his senior minister,Pranab Mukherjee. Ahmad spent a total of232 days on his foreign travels. He covered6,13,277 km of which 14,262 km were onpersonal visits. However, Ahmad’s travelsand the cities most visited are in direct pro-portion to his official charge. His travelstook him frequently to Dubai, Abu Dhabi,Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Singapore andthe Rs 1.37 crore spent on his official visitsare explained by the fact that Middle-Eastcomes under his ministerial jurisdiction.

34 INDIA TODAY u FEBRUARY 18, 2008

Praful PatelMoS (I.C.) for civil aviation Days as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 41Official: 16 Personal: 25DAYS ABROAD: 182Official: 57 Personal: 125Km travelled: 5,12,351 Official: 2,47,674 km Personal: 2,64,677 kmOFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 66.5 lakh

S. RegupathyMoS for environment and forests Number of trips: 7Km travelled: 70,416 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 67,000**Only for one trip

Sushil Kumar ShindeMinister for power Number of trips: 6Km travelled: 1,47,297 OFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 29.2 lakh*Some bills yet to be submitted

Suresh PachauriMoS for personnel, public grievances Number of trips: 6Km travelled: 85,932 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 28.2 lakh

Patel being a businessman would explain why he has spent 125days on personal visits while his official days abroad are only 57.

Kumari Selja, MoS (I.C.) for housing and urban poverty alleviation

In her 66 days abroad on 14 official visits, Selja’sdestinations include Amman, Canada, France, Italy,Egypt, Lisbon, South Korea and Spain.

UPA MINISTERScover story

The UPA regime has steadfastly refusedto reform the education sector by openingit to foreign direct investment. Yet that hasnot prevented the ministers and the man-darins from catching flights to various cor-ners of the world. Purandeswari in her 670days in office made eight trips while herCabinet Minister Arjun Singh went abroadnine times including an eight-day trip to theMiddle-East. The ministry sources say thatPurandeswari “presents the case of Indiavery well at the international fora”.

In many instances, the connection be-tween the destination and the portfolio isdifficult to decipher. Why would an MOS for

commerce and textiles visit Uzbekistanthrice? Or what is the attraction of Serbiafor ministers? Although there are entitle-ment norms for a minister travellingabroad, they are known to demand thatthey be lodged at the best suites and travelin the most expensive wheels. Simply be-cause there is the peculiar political fig leafcalled convention whereby ministers canjustify expenditure with the profligacy of aprevious regime.

While official work is a very useful alibi,it is interesting to note that certain destina-tions are visited by ministers regardless oftheir portfolio. Information reveals that 17

UPA MINISTERS

Dasmunshi has spent 38 days on his personal visits abroad against 20 days on official tours. He has covered 1.59 lakh km during his ministerial term.

In his 670 days in the ministry, Maken has undertakenpersonal visits to Malaysia, Thailand and Singaporespending about 12 days in those countries last June.

Pranab MukherjeeMinister for external affairsDays as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 33Official: 33 Personal: NilDAYS ABROAD: 115Official: 115 Personal: NilKm travelled: 3,09,145 Official: 3,09,145 km Personal: NilOFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 86 lakh*Only for MEA’s 21 trips

Mukherjee’s previous portfolio of defence had fetched him12 trips abroad while he hasmade 21 trips being theexternal affairs minister.

cover story

Ajay Maken, MoS for urban development

Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, minister for I&B and parliamentary affairs

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36 INDIA TODAY u FEBRUARY 18, 2008

Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s countryof birth, attracted the largest number ofministerial visits, private and official. Noless than 20 ministers visited Italy, and theyinclude Prasad, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Nath,Kantilal Bhuria, R. Velu, Santosh MohanDev, Ambika Soni, Subodh Kant Sahay,Shankersinh Vaghela, Vilas Muttemwar, S.Jaipal Reddy, Oscar Fernandes, P.R.

Kyndiah, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, Ashwani Kumar, Sriprakash Jaiswal andRenuka Chowdhury.

Other ministers who travelled abroadfairly frequently include Mukherjee, AnandSharma, Sharad Pawar (more on BCCI workthan representing the Agriculture Ministry),Anbumani Ramadoss, Chowdhury, KapilSibal, Vayalar Ravi, Rao Inderjit Singh and

ministers visited Thailand and 14 ministerswent to Malaysia at least once, either on of-ficial or on personal visits. Interestingly, jun-ior ministers (read MOS), who more often fretabout not getting enough to do, managed toshow up on foreign shores. As many as 33of the total 40 made 311 trips in total andspent 1,388 days abroad. Surprisingly,there are seven among them who did not

step out of the country at all. They includeM.H. Ambarish, MOS for information andbroadcasting; J.P.N. Yadav, MOS for water re-sources; M.V. Rajasekharan, MOS for plan-ning; Manik Rao Gavit, MOS for home;Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, MOS for socialjustice; Taslimuddin, MOS for civil suppliesand V. Radhika Selvi, MOS for home.

Here’s another interesting detail. Italy,

38 INDIA TODAY u FEBRUARY 18, 2008 FEBRUARY 18, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 39

Kanti SinghMoS for heavy industries Number of trips: 6Km travelled: 54,756 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Ram Vilas PaswanMinister for chemicals, fertilisers and steel Number of trips: 5Km travelled: 58,640 OFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 25.3 lakh*For fertiliser ministry only

Murli DeoraMinister for petroleum and natural gas Number of trips: 5Km travelled: 41,242 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 12.6 lakh

B.K. HandiqueMoS for chemicals, fertilisers andparliamentary affairs Number of trips: 5Km travelled: 51,819 OFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 69,000*Borne by parl. affairs ministry

Akhilesh Prasad SinghMoS for agriculture, consumer affairs, food Number of trips: 5Km travelled: 79,663 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 30.5 lakh

THE RULE BOOKFor every visit by a Cabinet minister,whether official or private, initial clear-ance is required from the Ministry ofExternal Affairs (MEA). After clearance,the file is sent to the prime minister forfinal approval. Only visits by thePresident, the vice-president and theprime minister require no sanction.

THE TABIn case of ministerial visits, the bills arepaid by the Indian missions in thecountries concerned and then settledthrough book transfer with the ministryconcerned.

ENTITLEMENTSMinisters are entitled to five-star hoteljunior or executive suites in the range of$2,000-4,000 (Rs 80,000-1,60,000) aday. In cities like New York, Paris andLondon, their entitlement is a normalsuite during the peak sea-son, but the wow factoroften leads ministers to goin for presidential suiteswhich can cost upward of$6,000 (Rs 2,40,000) anight. One former externalaffairs minister would in-sist on staying in a bou-tique hotel in Paris and themission there had to justifythat it was the only hotel

available although the tab was close to¤2,000 (Rs 1,14,000) a night. A Unionminister has a fetish for a luxury suite inDorchester Hotel in London which costs£1,700 (Rs 1,31,000), plus the cost of abutler and tips, which add another £200 (Rs 15,500).

Ministers are entitled to a dearnessallowance of $75 (Rs 3,000) a day. Fortransport, cars are hired by the local mis-sion or provided by the host governmentfor the entire delegation. This can costabout $40 (Rs 1,600) an hour for aMercedes E-Class and $100 (Rs 4,000) anhour for the S-Class. Meals are providedby the mission or the local hosts.

To justify the luxurious stays, the rea-son given is that the minister would bemeeting foreign dignitaries. Since thereis no upper ceiling, the suites often cancost a bomb. For instance, the two one-bedroom residential suites on the 51stfloor of the Four Seasons New York cost

$15,000 (Rs 6,00,000) anight. In Dubai, the Burj AlArab Hotel offers a RoyalSuite at $10,400 (Rs4,16,000) a night and aslightly smaller presiden-tial suite at $9,200 (Rs3,68,000). Even thoughthe host governments veryoften offer their stateguest houses, our minis-ters prefer hotels.

What Union ministers get on their trips abroad and the process of clearance

Purandeswari is one of the ministers whose personal trips outnumber official ones. She has been outside India for almost 2 months which include only 5 official days.

Sahay, during his almost 2 months’ time abroad on 13trips, has gone to several countries that include France, the US, Germany, Brazil, Italy and Canada etc.

BangkokK. LumpurSingapore

LondonParisBrussels

New YorkGenevaDubai

ItalyZurichCanada

ManilaGermanyUzbekistan

A sample of destinations travelled by ministers

Shivraj V. PatilMinister for home affairs Number of trips: 4Km travelled: 24,736 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

T.R. BaaluMinister for shipping, road transport Number of trips: 4Km travelled: 73,429 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 14.1 lakh

Mahavir PrasadMinister for small and medium enterprises Number of trips: 4Km travelled: 60,706 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Raghuvansh P. SinghMinister for rural development Number of trips: 4Km travelled: 42,078 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Dinsha J. PatelMoS for petroleum and natural gas Number of trips: 4Km travelled: 93,512 OFFICIAL EXPENSES: Rs 15.7 lakh

S. Jaipal ReddyMinister for urban developmentNumber of trips: 4Km travelled: 59,180 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 43 lakh

Ministerial Entitlement Abroad

Curious destinations and countries

Anand SharmaMoS for external affairsDays as minister: 670NUMBER OF TRIPS: 30Official: 29 Personal: 1DAYS ABROAD: 114

Official: 113 Personal: 1Km travelled: 5,30,511Official: 5,18,226 km Personal: 12,285 kmOFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 1.33 crore* Some bills yet to be submitted

Sharma has made 30visits abroad leavingOverseas Indian AffairsMinister Vayalar Raviway behind at 18trips. Both enjoy an equal tenure.

Ministers are supposedto fly Air India only.But often they use other carriers on thegrounds that A-I flightsare not available or don’t directly connectthe destinations.

D. Purandeswari, MoS for human resource development Subodh Kant Sahay, MoS (I.C.) for food processing industries

cover story UPA MINISTERS

Ashwani Kumar. Pawar spent 97 daysabroad, out of which 49 days were devotedto BCCI work and 37 days were spent onministerial duty. Sharma, as MOS for exter-nal affairs, spent 114 days abroad on his 30trips and his expenses totalled over Rs 1.33crore while Minister for Overseas IndianAffairs Ravi spent 125 days on his 18 visits.Both Sharma and Ravi put an equal 670days in their tenure.

Chowdhury totalled 112 days abroadduring her terms in the ministries of tourismand culture, and women and child develop-

ment. She made three personal trips toCambodia, Chicago and Singapore, afterbeing moved to Women and ChildDevelopment Ministry. While MOS for Labourand Employment Fernandes spent a fairlysubstantial amount of over Rs 2.26 crore onthe 46 days he spent outside the country onofficial visits. The reason lies in the fact thathe has to take a huge delegation that in-cludes trade union representatives withhim. After all, the Government is supportedby the Left and the Left-supported tradeunions add to the number of his delegates.

Securing access to so much informationwould have been impossible—consideringthe thickness of red tapes—had there notbeen the RTI Act in place. When INDIA TODAY

filed an RTI application in PMO on September27 last year requesting the details of foreignvisits of ministers since the UPA Governmentwas formed, along with the approximate ex-penditure incurred by each of them, the PMO

provided all the details except that bit on theexpenditure incurred. The response said,“The culled information does not includeexpenditure involved in each trip which this

office does not maintain and may be ob-tained from individual ministries/depart-ments.” Subsequently, the magazine got intouch with every ministry and requested thedetails of foreign visits made by cabinetministers and ministers of state along withthe names of delegates and the approxi-mate expenditure by them for each trip.Sibal’s Ministry of Science and Technologycame up with the expenditure incurred onthe cash allowances of the minister andother officials on foreign trips but not theairfare. For airfare alone, a request was for-

FEBRUARY 18, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 41

M.M. Pallam RajuMoS for defence Number of trips: 4Km travelled: 58,630 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

H.R. BhardwajMinister for law and justice Number of trips: 3Km travelled: 47,189 OFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 20 lakh*Some bills yet to be submitted

Sis Ram OlaMinister for minesNumber of trips: 3Km travelled: 57,486 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 1.17 crore

R. VeluMoS for railways Number of trips: 3Km travelled: 54,529 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 11.2 lakh

Meira KumarMinister for social justice and empowerment Number of trips: 3Km travelled: 39,296 OFFICIAL EXPENSES: Rs 8.1 lakh

Suryakanta PatilMoS for rural development Number of trips: 3Km travelled: 30,656 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Sharad PawarMinister for agriculture, consumer affairs, foodand public distribution Days as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 27Official: 7 For BCCI: 17 Personal: 3DAYS ABROAD: 97Official: 37 For BCCI: 49 Personal: 11Km travelled: 2,62,597 Official: 86,133 km For BCCI: 1,36,917 km Personal: 39,547 kmOFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 1.03 crore

Soni has spent 23 days abroad on personal trips—whichinclude Italy, the birth place of Sonia Gandhi, as a destination—of which itineraries for 11 days were not disclosed by PMO.

Rao Inderjit SinghMoS for defence Days as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 26Official: 23 Personal: 3DAYS ABROAD: 130Official: 114 Personal: 16Km travelled:4,99,438Official: 4,65,658 km Personal: 33,780 kmOFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 33.3 lakh*As MoS for external affairs

Singh’s 670 days in MoD have taken him abroad nine times while hissenior minister A.K. Antony has travelled only twice in his 402 days.

Pawar has travelled abroad more often asIndian cricket boardchief than representinghis ministry of agriculture.

Ambika Soni, minister for tourism and culture

Elangovan has spent 55 days abroad on 18 official trips. He has visited Uzbekistan thrice, Bangkok twice, besides a number of countries.

Even a portfolio like environment and forests has afforded Meena a chance to officially visit Canada, theUAE, the US, Brazil, the UK, Czech Republic and Korea.Namo Narain Meena, MoS for environment and forests

E.V.K.S. Elangovan, MoS for textiles

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warded to the Pay and Account Office (PAO),Cabinet Affairs, asking it to “furnish the ex-penditure incurred towards airfare etc onthe visits indicated in the enclosed list of theHon’ble Minister for Science & Technology”.

Responses from some other ministrieswere at best elusive. The Ministry of Steelsaid, “Expenditures on the visits of minis-ters are met from the budget of CabinetSecretariat or met by the PSU concerned.”The Ministry of Power replied: “The figuresindicate expenditure in respect of ministerof power alone on airfare. The expenditure

incurred for minister of power on dailyallowance, hotel accommodation,transportation etc on foreign visit is notavailable with the ministry as the same ismet by the concerned Indian missionsabroad and debit claimed directly from PAO,Cabinet Secretariat.”

The Ministry of Environment andForest’s reply was comparatively detailed,but on expenditure, it said, “The exact ex-penditure incurred on these heads is met onactual basis by PAO, Cabinet Secretariat. Thefinal claims are submitted to it after the

42 INDIA TODAY u FEBRUARY 18, 2008 FEBRUARY 18, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 43

Shriprakash JaiswalMoS for home affairsNumber of trips: 3Km travelled: 18,481 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Pavan Kumar BansalMoS for financeNumber of trips: 2Km travelled: 25,528 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 4.3 lakh

Dasari Narayan RaoMoS for coal Number of trips: 2Km travelled: 32,382 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Naranbhai RathwaMoS for railways Number of trips: 2Km travelled: 36,955 OFFICIAL EXPENSES: Rs 20.3 lakh

A.K. AntonyMinister for defence Number of trips: 2Km travelled: 17,004 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

Shakeel AhmedMoS for communications and IT Number of trips: 2Km travelled: 15,388 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 2.5 lakh

Ramesh’s tours have included less-frequented placeslike Baku, Dhaka and Manila. He has spent 15 daysabroad on four official trips in his 670 days in office.

During his 670 days in the ministry, Kumar has spent75 days in countries like Kazakhstan, Egypt, France,Morocco, Italy, Japan, the UK and Canada.

Akhilesh DasMinister of state for steel Number of trips: 2Km travelled: 31,266 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not borne by ministry

Lalu PrasadMinister for railways Number of trips: 1Km travelled: 15,826 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 40 lakh

Chandra Sekhar SahuMoS for rural development Number of trips: 1Km travelled: 12,712 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 1.18 crore*

tours. The same may be collected from theredirectly.” Similarly, the Ministry of Micro,Small and Medium Enterprises provided allinformation except for expenses on the basisthat “expenditure on the cabinet minister’stour is booked under head ‘Council ofMinister Tour Expenses maintained byCabinet Secretariat’”. The response of theDepartment of Higher Education under theMinistry of HRD was a masterpiece of obfus-cation. It said the expenditure “informationis compiled after complete information fromthe Embassy concerned is received in theMinistry, which takes considerable time”.However, the ministry has provided the ex-penditure details for only three visits out ofthe nine made by the cabinet minister.

Finally, INDIA TODAY approached theCabinet Secretariat for details of ministerialexpenses, only to reach a dead-end. The

reply said, “Cabinet Secretariat is in no waythe public authority concerned with the in-formation relating to expenditure incurredon the salaries and allowances of ministersof Union Cabinet and the bills are settled be-tween the ministries concerned and the Pay& Account Officer, Cabinet Affairs, and theCABSEC has no role in this regard.”Significantly, ministries like railways,labour, tourism, external affairs, civil avia-tion, agriculture, urban development, fi-nance and water resources parted with fulland detailed information as requested. Incases where responses are still awaited, likethe ministries of defence and textiles, infor-mation provided by PMO has been used.

Opaque procedures have daunted ef-forts to get a complete lowdown on the ex-penses. In a sense, the magnitude of the billfor official tourism is yet a bit of a mystery.

P. ChidambaramMinister for finance Days as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 24Official: 24 Personal: NilDAYS ABROAD: 118Official: 118 Personal: NilKm travelled: 3,60,860Official: 3,60,860 km Personal: NilOFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 1.45 crore

Renuka ChowdhuryMoS for women & child development (I.C.)Days as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 25Official: 22 Personal: 3DAYS ABROAD: 112

Official: 101 Personal: 11Km travelled: 3,17,031Official: 2,92,911 km Personal: 24,120 kmOFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 56 lakh*As MoS for tourism and culture only

Nine of Chowdhury’s total visits, official or personal, were to the US and theUK alone. Her personal visits also comprise Cambodia and Singapore.

With six trips, the US tops Chidambaram’s list ofdestinations, obviously for the IMF and Word Bank meets.

Jairam Ramesh, MoS for commerce and industry

Arjun Singh, minister for human resource development

Ashwani Kumar, MoS for commerce and industry

Known for his stance against FDI in higher education, Singhhas made nine official foreign trips and has spent over two-and-a-half months in several countries.

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* As per official allotment

So many peripatetic ministers spending somuch of public money seems surprisingconsidering that the PMO ostensibly scruti-nises every request for official travelabroad and has been trying to be tight-fisted in its clearances. Sources in the PMO

suggest that the expenditure and travelitinerary would have been longer, had thePMO not stalled some habitual travellers.Apparently, the PMO cannot do much when

faced with ministers from the coalitionallies. The cynical view would be that thistoo is a coalition expenditure but the factsreveal that the big travellers in the UPA areseasoned Congressmen.

It was Rajiv Gandhi who had coined thephrase “Government on the move”. Evenhe would have been surprised at thedistance the UPA Government hastravelled—abroad, that is. n

UPA MINISTERS

M.H. AmbareeshMoS for information and broadcasting

J.P.N. YadavMoS for water resources

M.V. Rajasekharan

MoS for planning

Manik Rao GavitMoS for home affairs

S. JegadeesanMoS for social justice & empowerment

TaslimuddinMoS for agriculture, consumer affairs,food and public distribution

V. Radhika Selvi MoS for home affairs

Ministers who didn’t go to any foreign shore during their regime

Kapil SibalMinister for science & technology, andearth sciences & ocean developmentDays as minister: 1,287NUMBER OF TRIPS: 24Official: 23 Personal: 1DAYS ABROAD: 113Official: 106 Personal: 7Km travelled: 3,97,813Official: 3,93,405 km Personal: 4,408 kmOFFICIAL EXPENSES*:Rs 11.7 lakh*Airfare not included

P.R. KyndiahMinister of tribal affairs Number of trips: 1Km travelled: 11,846 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

K.H. MuniappaMoS for shipping, road transport Number of trips: 1Km travelled: 10,540 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 1.4 lakh

A.R. AntulayMinister of minority affairs Number of trips: 1Km travelled (personal visit): 6,112 OFFICIAL EXPENSES: Nil

G.K. VasanMoS (I.C.) for statistics and programmeimplementation Number of trips: 1Km travelled: 9,387 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

K. VenkatapathyMoS for law an justiceNumber of trips: 1Km travelled: 11,572 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Not provided

S.S. PalanimanickamMoS for finance Number of trips: 1Km travelled: 1,370 OFFICIAL EXPENSES:Rs 2.7 lakh

T. Subbarami ReddyMoS for mines Number of trips: 1Km travelled (personalvisit): 7,678 OFFICIAL EXPENSES: Nil

Sibal has toured the US six times,and has spent 18 days on a trip toMalaysia, China and Brazil.

Home Alone Netas

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Anbumani Ramadoss, minister for health and family welfare

Ramadoss’s 117 days abroad include places as varied asThailand, Kuala Lumpur, Geneva, Seychelles, Canada andSingapore. His 17 jaunts make up 2.54 lakh km.