crores

Karnataka

Belgavi

RTI

Bhimappa Gadaada

Ministers and MLAs coughed up a bill of Rs 7.24over a period of 10 days while the 2016Assembly’s winter session was going on inlast November, areply revealed.The bill majorly comprised of the expenses on the accommodation and food for the ministers and MLAs. In some cases, dinner was billed at Rs 3,000 per person, while breakfast and accommodation were shown to cost Rs 500 and Rs 19,000 respectively. Many expenditures like lunch and water were not included in the Rs 7.24 crore bill.RTI activistgot this information about the session held from November 21, 2016 onwards. During the session, the district administration got a reimbursement allowance of Rs 3 crore, while PWD and Police got Rs 1 crore each. Bhimappa said that the district administration exceeded their reimbursement limit by Rs 2.24 crore, even though the government is yet to oblige their request to reimburse the excess expenditure.The RTI activist further expressed concern about the expenditure bills seeming fishy. “The Secretariat itself took charge of the accounting. If we ask for expenditure details, we are told that there are exemptions under the law which allows these excesses. Hence, I smell some irregularities,” Bhimappa said.According to the reply to the RTI query, 51 rooms were booked in a luxury hotel. While the bills are still being verified, they haven’t been paid yet. Bills from other hotels are also pending, Deputy Commissioner N Jayaram said.