Jet-setting Karnataka Guv splurged ₹3.5 crore on air travel in less than 2 years
- Governor Vajubhai Vala’s office released the details after getting a letter from the president.
- The governor used a charter operator for his travel.
- The current governor’s flying expenses are five times higher than his predecessor.
Follow
Barely three months after his office was fined ₹5,000 for not responding to an RTI query on his flight expenses, Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala has finally come clean on the amount of money it takes to keep him flying around: ₹3.5 crore in 20 months.
Read also: Karnataka Governor fined for evading RTI on travel expenses
Narasimha Murthy, the RTI activist who had filed the earlier query in October, had appealed to the President to force Vala’s office to release the figures. Vala’s office released the details after receiving a letter from the President.
The Governor’s office revealed that most of his flying engagements were undertaken by Bengaluru-based GMP Air Charters. The governor has used flights most of the time for government programmes; however, the details of programmes are not mentioned in the list released by Raj Bhavan. These programmes have just been mentioned as “official.”
The previous governor, Hansraj Bharadwaj, had spent just ₹60 lakh on travel throughout his career. Vala had earned bad press in June 2015 for his spending ways: nine months after he had assumed office, it was revealed that nearly ₹2.5 crore had been spent on renovating the Raj Bhavan. According to NDTV, this included ₹40 lakh to renovate his living quarters and ₹50 lakh for sprucing up the kitchen, dining hall and bathroom.
