Government turns town 21 foreign trips of union ministers
14 Jan, 2015
As per information received in response to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) received 88 proposals for foreign trips from the cabinet colleagues between May and December, 2014. Out of the above, 21 were rejected including eight proposals which were cancelled by the respective ministries and four were cancelled at a later stage. The documents show that the PMO directly intervened in nine cases.
The proposals for the visit of the Union Minster Nitin Gadkari's to UK and Holland, Nirmala Sitharaman's visit to Bangkok and VK Singh's visit to UN, Cairo and UAE didn't get approval although all were for official purposes. Perhaps, the minister whose proposals were turned down the maximum number of times was the Shripad Naik, Goa MP, who has been shifted to the Ministry of Health and Welfare from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Six out of his eight trips were overruled by the government. A private tour of Najma Heptullah was also not given the approval.
The government is said to have stressed on curbing expenditure and avoiding unnecessary foreign trips.