While the Chief Minister of neighbouring Karnataka has cancelled a foreign tour of state legislators in the face of severe public criticism, a similar “study tour” to China for Andhra Pradesh legislators is still hanging fire nearly a year since it was proposed during last year's Budget Session. Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy had earlier agreed to government funding the eight-day trip to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and the famous Three Gorges Dam.
Even details of the expenditure were finalised — Rs 1.29 lakh per person —and Speaker Nadendla Manohar had mooted a proposal for the legislators to pitch in with Rs 30,000 each, with the state government bearing the rest. Though Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy periodically enqui-red about the progress of the proposed tour, it has remained in a limbo.
Sources said almost all MLAs showed enthusiasm about the tour after the Speaker informed them of the proposal, and even the MLCs told the Chief Minister that they should also be made part of the trip. But a leader from the opposition party is learnt to have met Mr Manohar subsequently and told him that while their members will be part of the tour, his party will issue a statement condemning the tour and wasting public money on it. A leader from another opposition party also informed the Speaker that the party cannot, on principle, approve of a foreign trip involving such high cost to the exchequer. According to a source close to Mr Manohar, the Speaker planned the study tour from his own experience of three trips to China in the past, with the idea that the legislators would gain valuable experience in development and infrastructure. “The China tour plan is not shelved; it is only halted,” the source added.