Since becoming Mayor in June 2005 , Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya has visited not less than 25 countries

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.

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