Time to ground the ministers

About a year into the second term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), reports about two ministers staying in five-star hotels led to the grand announcement of an austerity drive. While ministers soon got their act together, or at least made the effort to be seen to have done so, austerity seems to have been given the go-by when it comes to foreign trips. An investigation by this paper has thrown up these figures: 30 months, 40 ministries, 83 ministers, 751 trips, and a whopping 3,000 days spent abroad, despite a directive from the prime minister’s office to exercise ‘discretion’ in foreign travel.

SM Krishna leads the way with 51 trips abroad totalling 138 days, but he is India’s external affairs minister and travelling abroad is part of his job. But what about the likes of industries minister Anand Sharma (46 trips/178 days), and one-time civil aviation minister and now heavy industries minister Praful Patel (29 trips/106 days; his ministry disclosed expenses for only four trips)?

It is nobody’s case that ministers shouldn’t visit foreign lands. It can well be argued that seeing and learn from the world is important. But if these officials believe that they are not answerable to anyone and that gallivanting around the world is their right — remember this paper’s prescient expose about a state minister whose itinerary consisted solely of amusement parks and beach resorts? — then they are mistaken.

There is an urgent need for a mechanism to be put in place to ensure that ministers do not abuse their powers. A report card where ministries put in the public sphere the purpose of the trips, and their outcomes, would be a welcome start.