As many as 37 requests for trips overseas from Union Ministers — including from powerful allies NCP’s Sharad Pawar and DMK’s A Raja — and several Secretary-level officers were turned down by the Prime Minister’s Office since the UPA Government came to power.

According to a detailed disclosure by the PMO, in response to an application filed under the Right to Information Act by The Sunday Express, the curb on foreign trips “is part of the overall economy/expenditure management measures adopted by the Government from time to time.” But a scrutiny of the list shows that the most common reason for turning down the request (see chart on next page) is that Parliament is on and the Minister can’t skip the session.

According to the list, Renuka Chowdhury, as Minister of State for Tourism, has earned the distinction for the maximum number of requests being turned down — six in all. “In view of Parliament session” was the reason attributed by the PMO for four of these rejections for proposed trips to Germany, USA, Senegal and Dubai in 2005.

Chowdhury ran into trouble with the PMO almost as soon as the UPA Government was formed. For her request for a visit to London in September 2004, the PMO noted that her proposed trip was ahead of the Prime Minister’s own tour and that the High Commission “would be busy.”

The most recent occasion her request was turned down was in January 2006 when she was disallowed from making an official visit to the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland. The PMO’s justification: “Minister may decline the invitation as a delegation has already been approved.”

... contd.