Expenses for foreign visits by former Maharashtra CMs Vilasrao Deshmukh, and Devendra Fadnavis pending: RTI
Expenses for foriegn visits by former Maharashtra Chief Ministers late Vilasrao Deshmukh and Devendra Fadnavis is pending of Rs 5.96 lakhs and Rs 4.14 lakh respectively according to RTI reply furnished by the Accounts General’s office of the Foreign Ministry.
RTI activist Manoranjan Roy had sought details from the Chief Minister’s Office about the chief minister’s foreign trips and their pending bills in the last 15 years. Replying to the query, the General Administration Department provided only the details of pending bills which revealed during the tenure of Dekhmukh and Fadnavis’s chief ministership, bills of Rs 5.96 lakhs and Rs 4.14 lakh were pending respectively.
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Late Vilasrao Deshmukh stayed in two hotels during his visit to Switzerland from January 22, 2008, to January 27, 2008, and spent Rs 1.69 lakh. Eight months later, Deshmukh again visited London from 24 September 2008 to 1 October 2008 and spent Rs 4.27 lakhs. Both the bills were pending with the state government.
Devendra Fadnavis, who was recently sworn in as deputy chief minister, had four bills pending. While two bills were for his own visits, another two bills were for his wife and daughter’s travel. In July 2016, Fadnavis’s banker wife Amruta Fadnavis had availed VIP lounge facility at St Petersburg hotel and its bill of Rs 6,936 was pending. Similarly, Fadnavis’s daughter also accompanied her mother and the bill of Rs 3,468 on her account was also pending with the foreign ministry.
Repeated attempts to get deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s comments on the pending bills of his wife and daughter’s foreign visits elicited no reply from his office.
Devendra Fadnavis’s bill was raised for his visit to Beijing in 2015 wherein Rs 2.52 lakh was spent on account of hiring vehicles for the Maharashtra delegation, while on his second visit to Stockholm and Dubai in 2017, a bill of Rs 1.51 lakh was raised as accommodation expenses.
As per the norms, if some expenses are incurred by the state ministers out of the prescribed norms during the foreign visit, then the concerned embassy pays the bill, which is later settled by the state governments with the foreign ministry.
Vilasrao Deshmukh’s successor Ashok Chavan also visited foreign countries, but he had no pending bills. Prithviraj Chavan who replaced Ashok Chavan did not embark on a single foreign visit. Uddhav Thackeray also did not make even a single foreign visit in his tenure, though his entire tenure was marred by the lockdown.
“State government should make these visits public by uploading all details on government portal including the reason, expenses and the outcome of the visit,” demanded activist Manoranjan Roy who had sought the RTI information on the Chief Ministers foreign expenses.
