States: Punjab: Flights of Fancy

Without a thought to the precarious condition of the state's finances, ministers and their minions are globetrotting at the expense of the taxpayer.

At a cabinet meeting some time ago, Union Minister of State for Industry Sukhbir Singh Badal came up with a novel suggestion: all ministers and MPs be allowed a two-month foreign jaunt every year for international exposure. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee merely smiled at the flight of fancy of the first-time minister.

But back home in Punjab, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has been following his US-educated son's prescription rather seriously. During the 20 months they have been in power, members of the state Cabinet went globetrotting 23 times -- touching 38-odd countries and leaving the state coffers poorer by almost Rs 2 crore. At least 13 of these foreign excursions were "business trips" which, as investigations by India Today reveal, actually brought in little or no business for the state.

TICKET TO RIDE
Name	Period	Countries Visited	Expenses
Parkash Singh Badal Chief Minister	June 29-July 6, 1997	Israel	Rs 43,258*
Parkash Singh Badal Chief Minister	March 9-April 3, 1998	US	Rs 42,12,306*
Kanwaljit Singh Finance Minister	July 18- August 7, 1997	US, UK, Canada	Rs 2,41,121
Ranjit Singh Brahampura Cooperatives Minister	July 22-30, 1997	UK	Rs 7,91,598
	April 10-14, 1998	Dubai	Rs 6,23,333
	Oct 1-14, 1998	US, UK, Holland	Rs 27,00,000
M S Calcutta Higher Education Minister	Oct 18-Nov 8, 1998	US, UK, Canada	Rs 2,78,115
Gurdev S Badal Agriculture Minister	Sept 20-Oct 8, 1998	Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines	Rs 17,70,000
Rattan Singh Animal Husbandry Minister	Sept 29-Oct 12, 1998	US, Canada	Rs 2,00,000**
Nusrat Ali Khan Sports Minister	Oct 20-Nov 11, 1998	Saudi Arabia	Rs 75,000**
Excludes air fare and DA of accompanying officials *Advance taken; final bills not yet submitted

That Punjab is tottering on the brink of bankruptcy (it ran into an overdraft with the RBI last month) hasn't deterred a ministerial gaggle obsessed with junkets. In December, Health and Family Welfare Minister Manoranjan Kalia flew down to Canada on an official visit while Minister of State for Sports Nusrat Ali Khan, wife and sister-in-law in tow, checked out Thailand for an "exposure on sports management" at the Asian Games in view of the National Games to be hosted by Punjab in 2000. But Khan, who flew off on December 13 without even the mandatory approval from Delhi, had to cut short his "holiday" two days later when a fax informed Chandigarh that the Centre "expresses its inability to approve the visit" and that he should take the first flight back.

The splurge on foreign jaunts not only runs counter to the Akali Dal's promise of "austere governance" but also exposes the hollowness of the Re 1 token salary drawn by Badal and his ministers. "Even in the face of a financial red alert, Badal is giving the green signal to just about every foreign trip," says a harried Finance Ministry official. The chief minister's indulgence is seen as an effort to buy loyalty. "In the garb of official visits, Badal is doling out all-expenses-paid foreign picnics to keep his political flock happy," says state Congress chief Amarinder Singh.

Interestingly, these trips flout the guidelines laid down by the Cabinet Secretariat regarding foreign travel by state ministers, MLAs and officials. The guidelines, contained in a recent circular (D.O.No.F.32/186/EC/97), clearly state that "the visits abroad for gathering general information need not be approved in any circumstances". Also, government rules allow a DA of only $100 (Rs 4,200) but ministers often get cash-rich PSUs to loosen their purse strings. For instance, state cooperative Markfed hiked the entitlement to $500 (Rs 21,000) besides giving executive-class air fare and $1,500 (Rs 63,000) entertainment expenses for one of the ministers.

If there was a frequent flier programme, Cooperatives Minister Ranjit Singh Brahampura would certainly lead the pack in this jet-set cabinet. Brahampura made three foreign trips during the past 14 months, with Markfed picking up the bill. On two occasions, Brahampura packed his bags for Dubai and the UK to attend trade fairs. The third -- and more controversial -- was a 14-day junket to the US, the UK and Holland that cost Rs 27 lakh. The five-member delegation, which included Brahampura's nephew as attendant, was to sign an MOU for a cattle-feed unit in the minister's constituency and explore technology tie-ups for a vodka plant, the licence for which expired long ago! Says a Cooperative Department official: "Markfed has gained nothing from the trips in terms of business expansion or exports."

The expertise with which ministers convert private visits into official jaunts is admirable. Central government rules forbid permission for visits abroad on invitation from private organisations. But Manjit Singh Calcutta, who recently resigned as minister for higher education and languages, managed to make an official trip out of an invitation of a Vancouver-based Sikh organisation. He even extended the tour to include the US and the UK on the pretext of studying the prospects of forging educational tie-ups in those countries. However, the "tie-up" between a UK college and a university in Punjab, which Calcutta counts as his major achievement, is yet to materialise.

Others have been equally ingenious. In September last year, Nusrat Ali Khan went to Saudi Arabia on a 22-day trip to oversee "stay arrangements" for Haj pilgrims. But to make the taxpayer pay for his "pilgrimage", he included in his itinerary a visit to a dairy farm in Riyadh, never mind the fact that the Saudi authorities denied him the permission. Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh combined his trip in August last year to the US for attending a privately-organised World Punjabi Conference with visits to the UK and Canada on the pretext of attracting NRI investments in Punjab. Singh's Rs 2.41 lakh odyssey did earn him saropas (shawls) abroad, but the state still awaits a slice of the NRI investment pie.

The chief minister takes the cake. His medical visit to the US in March was conveniently turned into a semi-business trip to legitimise the foreign junket. At the fag end of his 26-day stay in New York, all the business Badal transacted was a few meetings his Principal Secretary R.I. Singh set up with some NRIs. Interestingly, while Badal was mostly confined to the hospital, the delegation's local transport bill ran into $9,500 (Rs 4 lakh). Ask Singh about the business part of the trip, and he mumbles: "It was basically a medical trip."

In this banal game of milking the state answerability is an unknown word. In September, the Punjab Mandi Board coughed up Rs 18 lakh to have Agriculture Minister Gurdev Singh Badal flit across Thailand, Philippines, Singapore and New Zealand to study the markets. But that didn't help mitigate the worst ever paddy procurement disaster in Punjab mandis this year.

That's not all. "Hardly any MOU signed during the ministers' overseas trips has materialised," says an official in the chief minister's office. The MOUs on technology tie-ups signed during Badal's high-profile Israel visit in 1997 are yet to take off. But that didn't stop Animal Husbandry Minister Rattan Singh from flying off to the US and Canada. "It was wonderful to see advancements in dairying abroad," says Singh of his 18-day trip. Pity the extravagant ways of the Punjab Government are keeping that success from being replicated here.