Ministers splurged on non-veg dishes: Activist

Belagavi: It’s unfortunate that the assembly secretariat has denied information about expenditure of the last winter session held in Suvarna Vidhana Soudha (SVS) citing that the secretariat has kept the expenditure out of the purview of the Transparency Act, said RTI activist Bhimappa Gadad.
Gadad said on Thursday that the secretariat which was responsible for the food, accommodation, security and transport of legislators and officials during the last winter session had spent Rs 21.57 crores. But it is not giving the break-up of the expenditure, he said.

Stating that the last winter session had run only for 40 hours and 30 minutes, Gadad added that he had received information about the money spent by the district administration for the food consumed by ministers and officials.

“Most of the ministers and IAS officers were put up at Hotel Eefa by hiring 77 rooms. The government paid Rs 30 lakhs to the hotel, which including Rs 6 lakh for food excluding the lunch arranged at SVS and the complimentary breakfast given by the hotel. Many ministers and officers have ordered non-vegetarian food items like- prawns curry (Rs 500 per plate), crispy chicken (Rs 285 per plate), pomfret fish masala (Rs 1,000 per plate), Chicken Kolhapuri (Rs 290 per plate) and mutton dum biryani (Rs 350 per plate) for dinner,” he said.

The government paid Rs 24 lakh to the circuit house for food and security of the CM and four other ministers, Gadad said adding that he was awaiting details to know what the five people ate that was worth over Rs 2 lakh per day.

He also questioned the need to spend Rs 20.37 lakh to cut show trees and Rs 29.63 lakh for clearing algae when the government spends Rs 4 crores for the maintenance of SVS.

“It’s ridiculous than MLAs accommodated in Belagavi hotels get Rs 2,500 travelling allowance to travel between city and SVS and Rs 5,000 for those accommodated in Hubballi,” Gadad said.

He alleged that lot of public money was looted in the name of supplying drinking water to legislators and employees of SVS and to arrange pandals and toilets for protesting groups.