Meet two IAS officers of Chandigarh who have spent lakhs on domestic tours

As Dharam Pal did not respond to calls and messages of The Indian Express, the spokesperson of UT administration was contacted, who said that that the adviser’s all trips were official. “The Tirupati trip was also an official trip as there was a conference and even the governor had gone. Even Dharamshala and Jaipur were all official trips. Nothing has been done out of the way, the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, Yadav did not give any response on the queries raised by this correspondent after he was sent the specifics he asked for.

In July 2021, Dharam Pal travelled to Delhi twice, once to “attend a DPC meeting in UPSC along with other meetings” and then for discussions on issues relating to UT with central ministries. The total cost came to almost half a lakh at Rs 47,767.

In August, when he received a sum of Rs 33,093, sanctioned for his wife and daughter’s transfer from New Delhi to Chandigarh, the adviser again made two trips to Delhi, with the second one alone costing him Rs 52,702 for six days, revealed the RTI.

September proved more costly when he ran up a bill nearing one lakh with a three-day trip between September 29 and October 1 (to attend a meeting chaired by minister of state for Science and Technology) costing Rs 58,048. Earlier in the month he had already spent Rs 32,565.

October was perhaps the only month after July when Dharam Pal made just one trip to Delhi (Rs 32,565). But November made it up when he made two visits to Delhi which together accounted for Rs 75,952. All this for discussing “pending issues of UT.”

Baljinder Singh Bittu, Chairman, Federation of Sectors Welfare Associations of Chandigarh (FOSWAC) remarked that it was strange that the adviser continued to make such trips even when work from home and Zoom calls became the norm after the pandemic hit. “Before frittering away funds, they should know, it is public money after all,” Bittu said.

The adviser’s most cost-effective visit was to Shimla on December 2, where he spent only Rs 544. But this was followed by a six-day visit from December 15, 2021, to pursue UT’s pending issues and visit the International Centre for Automotive Tech at a cost of Rs 43,722.

January proved to be expensive with a three-day trip from Jan 27 to 29, “for pursuing important pending issues of UT administration in the Ministry of Home Affairs and other ministries” costing Rs 77,495. The affairs, it seems, were not sorted out as ten days later, he made another trip “to present demands for grants in the Ministry of Home Affairs” and spent Rs 22,330.

April 2022 proved to be the most expensive with a five-day trip to Delhi from April 27 costing Rs 98,804. This, after the UT adviser had already spent Rs 37,125 on a four-day visit earlier that month.

In May, he visited Delhi just once and incurred a bill of Rs 31,169. In the middle of June, he headed to Dharamsala which proved rather economical at Rs 8,459 for three days. But the three-day Delhi trip at the end of the month was quite expensive at Rs 68,141.

In July, he made a brief visit to Jaipur, which cost Rs 14,679. Four days later on July 13, he headed to Delhi again for a four-day trip that cost Rs 66,640.

Expensive trip to Tirupati

The four-day Tirupati visit from August 24 was arguably the most lavish with the adviser running up a bill of a whopping Rs 1.21 lakh. Earlier that month, a four-day trip to Delhi had cost him Rs 46,433.

Delhi got costlier the next month in September when a four-day tour set him back by Rs 60,775. October again proved very expensive with a nine-day trip to Delhi, Rajkot, and back, from October 18 “to attend conclave inaugurated by prime minister at Indian Urban Housing Conclave in Rajkot” running up a bill of Rs 1,59,147 (Rs 1,36,745 + Rs 22,402).

Five days after his return, Dharam Pal was back in Delhi, “to attend a function on violence against women” at a cost of Rs 32,955 to the exchequer. December was also pricey with two trips to Delhi, one “to pursue important pending issues of UT administration in the Ministry of Home Affairs and other ministries,” at a cumulative cost of Rs 89,882.
January 2023 was even more extravagant with two back to-back tours of eight days to Delhi costing a little less than a lakh at Rs 96,665.

As per the RTI reply, the adviser has made three more trips at a cost of Rs 1,03,201 “to attend the third session of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction,” a DRPC grant meeting, and “to discuss the pending issues of UT.”

Home secretary not far behind

Home Secretary Nitin Yadav also a spent a whopping Rs 6.84 lakh on his official tours from 2021 to early 2023. Though his frequency was less, his daily expenses were high with a day in Delhi costing around Rs 17,000.
A three-day trip to Delhi for “Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation 2.0” from September 30, 2021 cost him Rs 43,740.

But this expense paled in front of the Rs 90,987 he spent to attend the four-day “All India Conference of Law Ministers and Law Secretaries of all UTs” and also the “Civil Aviation Ministers Conference of States/UTs” from October 14, 2021.

From October 26 to October 29, Yadav went to Surajkund for a trip that cost Rs 47,147, to attend the “Chintan Shivir – a conference of union home minister on internal security, policing, civil defence, and home guards,” the RTI revealed.

A two-day trip in February 2021 cost Rs 35,695, while another in November carried an expense of Rs 36,899. But Gurgaon proved horrendously expensive with a two-day tour from July 5, 2022 costing Rs 48,364 (24,000 a day). His subsequent trips to Delhi in September and October, one for four days and another for two, cost an eye-watering Rs 1.03 lakh to the exchequer.

“I strongly believe that there is an urgent requirement to audit these expenses that are being incurred by the officers on such trips,” Garg who had filed the RTI said. He added that there should be a ceiling on how much an official can spend as India is a country “where people find it difficult to make ends meet, and every penny of public money is important and should be accounted for,”the UT resident said.