Secretariat refuses details of expenditure on Belagavi session

The legislature secretariat has refused to share all the details of the expenditure it incurred on conducting the winter session of the state legislature in Belagavi from November 21 to December 3 last year, according to Right to Information Act (RTI) activist Bhimappa Gadad.

Speaking to journalists here on Tuesday, he said that while the district administration had provided prompt replies to RTI applications within a month, the legislature secretariat had not yet come clean about how much money it had spent on conducting the session.

The secretariat has been exempted from the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements Act in providing
logistic support, food, transport, security and other facilties to VIPs during the winter session.

The secretariat also refused to share details of the expenditure incurred on the workshop it had conducted for journalists before the winter session. But a separate RTI query revealed that it gave souvenirs and mementos to 350 journalists and delegates at the workshop.

Responding to other RTI applications, the government said it incurred an expenditure of Rs 8.2 crore on conducting the session and that dues of Rs 2.2 crore were yet to be settled. Here are some of the details it shared:

* Rs 57.99 lakh was spent on board and lodging at Hotel Eefa located on Club Road in Belagavi. Rs 1.92 lakh was spent on providing accommodation to Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra and Rs 47,000 on his food.

* Providing 10-day accommodation and food to Health Minister K R Ramesh Kumar cost Rs 1.76 lakh, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister H K Patil Rs 1.5 lakh, Parliamentary Secretary C S Shivalli Rs 1.27 lakh and ministers H Y Meti, Tanveer Sait, Umashree, A Krishnappa and H Anjaneya between Rs 1.16 lakh and Rs 1.22 lakh each.

* The cost of one-day meal for JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy and Congress MLC Ivan D’Souza was Rs 3,352 and Rs 3,105, respectively. Minister for Planning, Statistics, Science and Technology, M R Seetharam, had a breakfast for Rs 564.