Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya may well be called a globe-trotter. Since June, 2005 when he took oath as the mayor, he has visited nearly 25 countries for attending summits and seminars. Of these, nearly eight visits came during July 2007 to July 2008.

He has visited almost every part of the world including China, Hong Kong, Australia, America, England, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Russia, New Zealand, Finland, Russia, Greece and Egypt. Interestingly, most of the tours were not related to either activities or interests of the KMC.

“For every foreign trip, the mayor stays out of the country for at least eight days. Sometimes the duration increases up to 15 to 20 days. In the last 12 months, he has been out of the city for approximately 100 days,” said a civic official. “Besides foreign trips, he also goes out of the city for several purposes including contesting court cases,” he added.

Unprecedented foreign trips of Bhattacharya have raised several eyebrows in the KMC. Civic officials, councillors and Opposition leaders do not have any clue about the amount of money being spent to organise the tours. “Besides a few tours that were sponsored by the invitee organisations, all the expenses for the foreign trips have been undertaken by the KMC only,” said a senior civic official.

Some of the tours included his visit to Germany in July, 2007 for a seminar “Summer Academy on Social Vulnerability”, to Australia for Mayor’s Asia Specific Environmental Summit (MAPES) in September, 2007, to Korea for Incheon Metropolitan Sister city Summit in October, 2007, to England for the seminar of Department for International Development (DFID), to Turkey in April 2008 and to China with the Bharat Chambers of Commerce for a goodwill tour in July.

Some of the countries mentioned above, he has visited twice in the last 12 months. Leader of the Opposition Javed Ahmed Khan said: “We always keep on asking why he is visiting abroad so frequently even though the visits are not related with the KMC work. All these trips are for seminars and goodwill missions, where the mayor of the city is not supposed to go.”

He added: “Several decisions have been put on hold for the absence of mayor in the corporation. During emergencies, the city mayor usually remains out of reach.”

Bhattacharya, however, has a different take. “I visit other countries to project Kolkata on the world map. No mayor of Kolkata has showcased the city at a global platform so far. Kolkata should learn from metropolitan cities of other countries,” he said. The mayor added: “We are yet to implement the projects, I have seen in other countries, due to lack of political will and stiff resistance by the people.”

The Opposition councillors, on the other hand, slam his remarks. “Instead of working in his office and ensure the development of the city, the mayor prefers to project the city at global seminars,” said a councillor. “It does not matter to him that Kolkata does not have urban governance, upgraded drainage and sewerage system, proper footpaths and above all environment management,” he added.

The Opposition also pointed out that Bhattacharya never took a team of engineers or MMiC (members mayor-in-council) of various departments with him for introducing them to development projects of other countries.

Former Mayor Subrata Mukherjee said: “In my tenure, I entered into agreements with Greece, Italy and United Kingdom to forge joint development projects between Kolkata and cities of those countries. I never visited a country without any purpose. My visits were to further the interests of the KMC.”

He added: “I used to take a team of experts from the KMC including engineers, MMiC and even Opposition councilors to give them an opportunity to learn about the development projects so that they can replicate the technology in the city.”