RTI reveals three Chandigarh officials spent taxpayers' money to upgrade Paris trip

The three officers upgraded their stay from a ‘five-star’ hotel in Paris to a luxury property and changed their return tickets to business class

Three senior Chandigarh bureaucrats spent well over their sanctioned allowances—all the at expense of taxpayers’ money—to splurge on a seven-day trip for a three-day meeting in Paris in 2015. This was revealed through a Right to Information Act request made over a year ago about details of foreign trips by the union territory’s administrators over the past 10 years, reported The Indian Express.

The three officers of the Chandigarh administration upgraded their stay from a ‘five-star’ hotel in Paris to a luxury property and changed their return tickets to business class—making their expenditure more than 40 per cent extra of their allowed budget. The three approved the additional expenses for each other upon return, through modified orders.

The officials went to Paris to attend a June 15-17, 2015, meeting about the work of Chandigarh city architect Le Corbusier. However, the officials were in the French capital from June 12-18, 2015, and spent more than Rs 25 lakh—nearly twice the amount that was previously approved.

The initial allowance of UT Advisor Vijay Dev was Rs 6.5 lakh, Home Secretary Anurag Agarwal Rs 5.6 lakh and personnel secretary Vikram Dev Dutt Rs 5.7 lakh. However, they each spent more than the amount, and the extra expenditure was approved later through modified notification.

The RTI request also revealed, as reported by the publication, that almost a month after the Paris trip, UT Advisor Dev’s revised expenses were approved by the UT administration wing, which was headed by personnel secretary Dutt.

After that, Dev issued orders to clear the additional expenses of Dutt and Agarwal. “Administrator is pleased to accord revised sanction for the payment…on account of actual expenditure,” the orders had said.

When asked about the trip’s expenses, Dutt told the publication: “I have no ready recollection of the details, maybe it was a delegation led by the Advisor with other officers.”

“If you start nitpicking, there can be questions on everything… you (should) look at the intent. We visited some properties designed by Le Corbusier. Also, I remember it was a sad day when we boarded the flight. Nek Chand (the self-taught artist who built the famous rock garden in Chandigarh) had passed away and we felt really bad,” Anurag Agarwal told the publication.

Currently, Dev is the state election commissioner of Delhi and Chandigarh; Dutt is chairman and managing director of Air India Asset Holding Limited; and Anurag Agarwal is chief electoral officer in Haryana.