Khattar govt spent ₹40 lakh on Chintan Shivir at Timber Trail
CHANDIGARH: The BJP government in Haryana had paid around ₹39.93 lakh to an upscale private hill resort, Timber Trail Heights in the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, for a three-day Chintan Shivir (workshop on governance issues) in December 2017.
This was stated by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar in a reply to an unstarred question in the assembly. The question was asked by Congress MLA Karan Singh Dalal and his INLD counterpart Parminder Singh Dhull.
A statement tabled in the House on the expenditure incurred by the state government on the shivir said a sum of ₹31.98 lakh was spent on accommodation at the private resort while ₹7.94 lakh was spend on food. The total expenditure, including ₹15,000 for the transportation, worked out to be ₹40.08 lakh, the statement said.
The Khattar government had drawn flak from the Opposition for holding the workshop for bureaucrats and ministers at a private resort last year. Leader of Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala had said that government should have organised the shivir at either of the Haryana tourism resorts at Surajkund in Faridabad or Morni in Panchkula.
“On one hand, Manohar Lal Khattar preaches austerity by travelling economy class while on the other, the state government is not shying away from splurging tax payers money by organising an event at a private resort, and that too in another state,” he had lamented. The INLD leader had also assured of recovering the public money spent on party affairs like these if their party came to power.