New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spent Rs 620 crores on air travel during foreign trips spanning the years between 2004 and 2013, the website of Prime Minister's Office has revealed. He spent the most on his trip to Mexico and Brazil in June 2012, racking a bill of Rs 26.9 crore in just eight days.
PM Manmohan made 67 trips from 2004 to 2013, out of which five still remain unbilled. The website has revealed this information under the Section 4 of RTI Act.
The website also revealed the Prime Minister's salary and allowance break up. According to the website, PM Manmohan's pay is Rs 50,000 with a sumptuary allowance of Rs 3000, along with a daily allowance and a constituency allowance of Rs 62,000 (Rs 2000 per day) and Rs 45,000 respectively. That brings his total salary to Rs 1,60,000 per month.
Section 4 of the RTI Act, under which the website declared the PM's salary and details of the foreign trips, states that: "Every public authority shall maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated."
Earlier in June, the Chief Information Commissioner ruled that all political parties come under the ambit of the Right to Information Act. The ruling provides for greater transparency in the working of the political parties as now the public has the right to get information about their functioning and funding.
A Full Bench of the Commission comprising Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra and Information Commissioner ML Sharma and Annapurna Dixit said six parties - the Congress, the BJP, the CPI-M, the CPI, the NCP and the BSP - to whom RTI queries were directed, must fulfill the criteria of being public authorities under the Right to Information Act.
"The Presidents, General Secretaries of these parties are hereby directed to designate CPIOs and Appellate Authorities at their headquarters in six weeks. The CPIOs so appointed will respond to the RTI applications extracted in this order in four weeks time," the bench had directed.
The bench also directed them to comply with the provisions of mandatory proactive disclosures clauses given under the RTI Act and put those details on their websites. The case related to RTI queries from activist Subhash Agrawal and Anil Bairwal of Association of Democratic Reforms who had sought to know the finances and voluntary financial contributions and the names and addresses of the donors received by these six parties besides other details which were refused as the political parties claimed they do not come under the RTI Act.
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