In 10 yrs, Badals spent ₹121 cr on chartered flights: Sidhu

CHANDIGARH: Former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and ex-deputy CM Sukhbir Badal could well earn the epithet of ‘Flying Jatts’, if the reply of an RTI query is an indication.

The information, shared by local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu at a press conference here on Sunday, has been procured from the state civil aviation department by Congress MLA Sangat Singh Gilzian’s son Daljit Singh.

The information shows the Badals clocked almost one flight a day in private as well as state helicopter. The chartered flights alone cost the cash-starved state a staggering ₹121 crore in 10 years, an average ₹1 crore per month. Private helicopters are hired at ₹1.25 lakh to ₹2.6 lakh an hour.

The Badal regime also bought a new state chopper, a Bell 429 model, for ₹38 crore, without competitive bidding, which was later also red-flagged by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report. The state chopper rides added another ₹8 crore as fuel expenses. In all, the Badal family’s outings, including visits to their farmhouses in Balasar in Haryana, Badal village in Bathinda and New Delhi, cost the state ₹167 crore, if the cost of the new helicopter is added.

The RTI reply also shows that

Badal claimed ₹500 as travelling allowance, each time he travelled by air.

Sharing information procured from the general administration department, Sidhu said the former CM was also sanctioned ₹7.9 lakh as “time-barred” TA, an amount he had claimed as reimbursement for his flight tickets to America where his wife was undergoing treatment in 2010. “The TA was granted without air tickets or boarding passes,” the minister said.

They not only clocked air miles but their fleet of 51 SUVS (32 of Badal and 19 of Sukhbir) also guzzled fuel worth ₹14 crore in first 19 months of their second stint in power between March 2012 and December 2013, the period for which information was sought.

“It was criminal loot of state coffers. I will request finance