Civic body fails to learn lessons, earmarks Rs 50 lakh for study tour

CHANDIGARH: Failing to learn any lessons from last year''s study tour controversy, the "cash-strapped" Municipal Corporation has once again kept a provision of Rs 50 lakh for the study tour of councillors and officials in the civic body’s Budget for 2015-16.

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 5

Failing to learn any lessons from last year's study tour controversy, the "cash-strapped" Municipal Corporation has once again kept a provision of Rs 50 lakh for the study tour of councillors and officials in the civic body’s Budget for 2015-16.

The UT Administration has already reduced the MC’s Budget from Rs 136 crore to Rs 102 crore for 2015-16.

BJP councillor Satinder Singh, who is against wastage of public money on study tours, said such tours were only for the "leisure and pleasure" of councillors. The wastage of public money should be stopped immediately, he demanded.

A senior MC official said on condition of anonymity that there was no harm in these study tours. Councillors and officials got to learn something new from these tours.

Recently, the audit report had slammed the MC over the wastage of public money on these study tours. The audit report stated, “A scrutiny of the records revealed that the terms and conditions laid down by the general house and the local Administration were not followed in true spirit by the MC, which resulted in violation of rules and unjustified expenditure from the MC exchequer."

The MC had already spent nearly Rs 1 crore on various study tours over the years. MC officials, in their reply to BJP councillor Satinder Singh, had also admitted that no project based on these study tours was implemented in the city.

Last year, the civic body had spent Rs 28 lakh from the public exchequer for the study tour to Chennai, Kolkata and Port Blair.

A total of 39 members, including 20 councillors — Mayor, six UT and MC officials and 13 family members of councillors –- had gone for the study tour.

After the study tour controversy erupted, the MC Commissioner shot off a note to the MC Accounts Department in December 2014 wherein he sought the recovery of money spent by councillors and officials to meet private expenses during the study tour.

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