On the wings of fancy…OR religious tourism
Now here's man after my heart, an old fashioned traveller but with a huge difference. You and I pay for his flights of fancy (literally not metaphorically) and in case you don't know it comes out of the huge tax you are paying because our good FM Chidambaram is merciless about taking an arm and a leg from salaried blokes.
In the case of our intrepid itinerant, I am unable to lay my hands on what must have been his hotel expenses in, for example Kathmandu. Desai who belongs to the party of the Gods even had a soft landing in Thailand, which is a melting pot of cultures from India and Asia and whose language has words derived from Sanskrit. Now being in above said party he must have taken in the beautiful temples in Bangkok, even if soldiers fighting in Vietnam in the sixties put it on the map -Pattaya and Phuket, in particular -for, shall we say, other reasons.
Then surely his 13 days (9-21 October 2001) in Bangalore and Mysore City must have cost you a bomb (oops, after the serial bombs that went off last weekend, it might be a regrettable choice of words!). But Desai seems to have a penchant for Bangalore and Mysore cities because he visited them twice. He seems to love Jaipur more - a fact that the Rajasthan's tourism department will surely applaud -because he visited thrice, once in 2001 and twice in different months in 2003. Actually, Desai clearly loves travel destinations because he's been to God's Own Country twice (2001 and 2004), to Shimla in the summer and Uttaranchal and Kulu in October/November. His travels abroad cost you Rs3,13,258, that's half the cost of his total travel cost of Rs Rs6,71,434.)
Ramrao Desai
11-15 June 2000 Hyderabad Rs12,675
20-25 April 2000 Kathmandu Rs17,258
13-16 February 2001 Delhi Rs14,800
13-22 May 2001 Udaipur/Mount Abu/Jaipur/Ratma/Delhi Rs29,485
24-27 June 2001 Mumbai/Rajkot
26 April-3 May 2001 Delhi/Simla/Colmandu/Mumbai Rs17,409
31 Jan-12 Feb 2002 New Zealand/Thailand Rs72,000
09-21 Oct 2002 Bangalore/Mysore Rs5,491
19-21 Oct 2001 Mumbai/Delhi Rs15,599
30 Oct-5 Nov 2001 Cochin Rs8,470
23-26 Dec 2001 Delhi Rs17,263
02-07 July 2002 Delhi Rs14,181
30 Oct-03 November 2002 Mumbai/Delhi/Kulu Rs16,255
17-18 December 2002 Mumbai Rs6,742
08-09 March 2003 Delhi Rs17,660
23-25 January 2003 Bangalore/Mumbai Rs18,740
01-02 February 2003 &
04-06 June 2003 Mumbai Rs7,802
12-17 May 2003 Bangalore/Mysore Rs10,420
05-10 May 2003 Jaipur/Mumbai Rs17,869
23-27 July 2003 Jaipur/Mumbai Rs20,685
24 October-02 November 2003 Singapore/Hong Kong &
14-23 October 2003 USA/Canada Rs2,24,000
25-26 September 2004 &
15-16 January 2004 Mumbai Rs14,050
24-26 March 2004 Mumbai/Cochin Rs14,960
27 October-9 November 2004 Delhi/Uttaranchal/Delhi Rs23,255
24-27 November 2004 Delhi Rs21,417
20-23 January 2005 Delhi/Mumbai Rs22,188
Total Rs6,71,434
The last time I checked, Joaquim Alemao was not the IT minister. Yet, between April/May 2006 to October 2007, he made ten trips to Bangalore, known as the Silicon Valley of India. "Bangalored" is a pejorative usage when someone in the US has seen his job being outsourced to Bangalore. But Joaquim got "Bangalored" in a different way culminating in him spending a whopping Rs 1,14,261 to-ing and fro-ing to the IT city in just two trips. All one can say is that hotel rooms don't come cheap in Bangalore. Maybe he was checking out how Bangalore handled garbage. But 10 times costing the exchequer Rs 2,71,705 and that does not include the trip he made to Bangalore but whose ticket was clubbed with his Mumbai visit. Maybe he should be conferred a Ph.D in garbage management.
Speaking of Mumbai, he made 21 trips. Why? Go figure! And while you are at it figure out what he did in Mumbai between 22 January and 26 December of 2006. Of the three trips he made to Chennai -maybe to check out the bio-methanation plant at Koyambedu, the wholesale fruit, vegetable and flower market where the bio-degradable garbage is converted to energy. As to why he went to Nagapattinam, that's a no-brainer. The Velankanni Church is there, stupid. It's a pilgrimage most Roman Catholics like to take.
Alemao's penchant was definitely for Bangalore, his liking for that destination beginning in April 2006 and the former garden city-turned-IT (crowded) city kind of grew on him. Culminating in him spending a whopping Rs1,14,261 on two trips in March 2007 itself in a total of Rs2,71,705 and that does not include one trip whose ticket cost was clubbed together with a trip to Mumbai.
Joaquim Alemao
18-27 July 2005 Mumbai Rs9187
5-7 September 2005 Mumbai Rs9602
21-23 October 2005 Mumbai/Delhi Rs24,322
14-17 September 2005 Mumbai/Chennai Rs23,905
2-4 December 2005 Delhi &
8-10 December Delhi Rs32,948
18-21 December Delhi Rs38,027 (3)
22 January-26 December 2006 Mumbai Rs14,486**
2-4 March 2006 Mumbai Rs37,821
4-5 April 2006 Delhi Rs37,672
28-30 March Mumbai Rs11,741
2-3 February 2006 Mumbai Rs13,440
26 April-1 May 2006 Bangalore Rs17,012
4-5 May 2006 Mumbai Rs13,970
22-23 May 2006 Bangalore Rs11,247
10-15 June 2006 Bangalore Rs27,440
3-8 August 2006 Pune/Mumbai Rs25,964
20-22 August 2006 Bangalore/Mumbai/Hyderabad Rs38,615
29 September-1 October 2006 Mumbai &
15-18 September 2006 Bangalore/Mumbai Rs27,315
13-14 October 2006 Mumbai Rs30,849
6-9 December 2006 Mumbai &
29-30 December 2006 Bangalore Rs31,893
10-12 January 2006 Mumbai &
20-29 January 2007 Mumbai Rs47,760
3-4 March 2007 Delhi Rs33,982
20-23 February 2007 Mumbai/Bangalore &
12-13 March 2007 Delhi/Bangalore Rs82,560
27-28 March 2007 Bangalore/Chennai Rs31,701
14-16 April 2007 Mumbai Rs15,302
1-5 July 2007 Bangalore/Chennai/Nagapattinam Rs35,815
7-8 August 2007 Mumbai Rs15,572
24-29 October 2007 Mumbai Rs17,325
Total Rs7,57,473
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