‘MRVC spent `3cr on foreign trips’
An RTI application has revealed that in the last 10 years, the Maharashtra Rail Vikas Corporation has incurred expenses of `2.92 crore on foreign trips alone. MRVC spends an average `2.41 lakh on every foreign junket.
According to the information provided by RTI activist Anil Galgali, MRVC officers made trips to several foreign countries to carry out technical studies for commercial development of railway land and airspace in Mumbai. Since 2003-2004 to 2012-2013, the MRVC has incurred expenses of `2,92,77,559 on foreign trips. Of out this, `38,18,185 lakh was spent on foreign travel in 2012-2013 alone, reveals the RTI query.
Almost every senior officer of the MRVC went on these foreign junkets claimed Mr Galgali. He pointed out that P.C. Sehgal, A.K. Verma and Rakesh Saksena — the three managing directors in the ten-year period — made a total of 12 trips. Maximum number of trips (seven) were made by Mr Sehgal. Mr Verma went on four such trips and Mr Saksena on one. CAOs Chetna Kumar and Atul Mohan also took multiple trips to various foreign destinations during their tenure.
The countries visited by officers include UK, China, Japan, Austria, France, Port-ugal, Germany, Switze-rland, Malaysia, South Korea, US, Malaysia and Holland.
Mr Galgali further added that the guidelines regarding foreign tours issued by director (PSU) of the Railway Board dated May 22, 2009 clearly mentions that as far as possible, efforts should be made to make use technology like video-conferencing. It further adds that foreign trips should be taken
only if this is not feasible. “However, these guidelines were clearly flouted. We are also quite sure that nothing meaningful came out of these trips.”
Chief public relations officer Prabhat Ranjan refused to comment on the matter.
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