Bihar legislators mint money by submitting fake travel bills: Audit report

Patna,(BiharTimes): A couple of days back a television channel broke the story of a big travel bills scam involving several Rajya Sabha MPs of the country.

Anil Sahni, JD (U) member of the Upper House from Bihar, was said to be the one who made highest amount of such bogus bills.

Now even the MLAs and MLCs of states have been found involved in this racket. Legislators of Bihar are said to be at the top in submitting forged and inflated travel bills.

Two detailed audit reports of various allowances claimed by members of Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council between 2006 and 2012 suggest that many of them have cheated state exchequer of crores of rupees by submitting forged travel bills. 

Incidentally, most of these elected representatives are from the ruling National Democratic Alliance, which came to power in November 2005 on the promise to clean the politics from corruption.

Reports appearing in the media says that one member claimed that he flew from Patna at 1:20 PM to Delhi on May 24, 2011, and returned from Delhi at 5:05 PM the next day by Air India. 

However, according to audit reports, he had also claimed money for local travel on the same day showing he was in Haridwar and Garhwal. He had also claimed Rs 66,030 as travel expense for a committee meeting between May 13 and 27.

The report said it was doubtful “whether the member had undertaken the tour with the committee and whether his claim of Rs 66,030 was genuine.” 

According to the audit another MLA, a member of Sarkari Upkram Committee, was “clearly evident that the claims of DA/MA for the committee tour (to Delhi, Chandigarh etc in May, 2011) were not genuine.” 
Another legislator, who was a member of Zila Parishad and Panchayati Raj Committee of the House, went on tour to Karnataka, Kerala and Goa between September 2, 2011 and and September 16, 2011.
He claimed that he travelled 180 km in Goa on September 12, 2011, though he arrived there only at 6:20 AM on the next day.

A member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Bihar Assembly went on committee tour to Delhi, Maharashtra and Rajasthan between January 9, 2011 and January 24, 2011. Even though he left Mumbai by air at 11:25AM he claimed to have travelled between Bandra to Matheran between 10:30 AM and 12:45 PM, and later from Matheran to Bandra from 3 PM to 5.15 PM. 

Report said a second member of the PAC claimed that he was on train between Amritsar and Jammu Tawi, though he was flying between Mumbai and Delhi at the same time. 

According to auditors several Bihar legislators have filed numerous forged and faked bills to claim money.

After scrutiny of statement of reservation done by legislators on Rail Travel Coupons (RTCs) issued to them from Patna Jn, Rajendra Nagar, Hajipur, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Gaya and Vidhan Mandal reservation counters the audit found that 87 members had claimed to have performed frequent rail journeys outside Patna. But, against 4,112 such journeys, on 3,637 occasions the members had also claimed DA for the same period, claiming to be in Patna. 

The audit report thus said that “this would clearly indicate that these journeys were not actually performed by the member himself on RTCs as they had claimed to be personally present at Patna on those days as was evident from their declaration of presence at Patna in the TA bills.”

The Bihar Assembly, with 243 members, spent Rs 217.27 crore on travel, salaries, allowances etc during this six years period. 

Under rule-10 of Bihar State Legislature 
(Members’ Salaries, Allowances and Pension) Act, 2006, each member of the Assembly or Council may, along with a co-traveller, perform journeys in connection with his duties within India in AC compartments. S/he can spend up to Rs 1.5 Lakh on such journeys. A member could also travel by air with his or her family for a maximum value to Rs 75,000. 
But the report said that out of 5,799 rail journeys claimed by the legislators, in 1,522 journeys they were accompanied by two to five co-travellers. This was done in total violation of rules, which says they can carry only one co-passenger.