While Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi's tryst with austerity included an economy class flight to Mumbai and Bangalore and an Iftar-less Ramzan, her son and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi took a rail ride to Ludhiana and back. But look at what UPA minsters are up to in Delhi. Many Cabinet ministers have ordered expensive fittings to renovate their offices.
While some wanted Spanish wall tiles and Italian porcelain in toilets, one minister wanted a new toilet right behind her chair as per the advice of her vaastu expert!
All these have cost the public exchequer a few crores. Call this austerity!
Ministers who are exceptions: Defence Minister A K Antony and Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee. Both the ministers have not put up any big wish list. While Antony is continuing in his earlier chambers, Mamta is more comfortable operating out of Kolkatta, not Delhi. Hence her chamber in Rail Bhavan is empty most days.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram too have set an example not asking for changes. It is the new ministers and a few ministers of state who have thrown the austerity book out of the window.
According to The Indian Express, some requests from Ministers flooding the Director General of Works (DGW) of the Central Public Works Department are strange. One Minister wanted a private architect being kept "in the loop" for finalising his new office design, a Minister of State has demanded a new toilet "on the back side of her seat" in keeping with Vaastu.
While many ministers are keen on having plush toilets with the latest bathroom fittings, some have fallen for new wooden flooring and tiles.
Most favoured companies? From Italy and Spain!
Even the young Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, has slipped in a wish list having toilet fittings from Kohler, Italian marble and wall and floor tiles of EP02 NATSQ make.
Prasada was quoted in IE as saying: "I got everything done from the CPWD, within the permissible rules and not from outside or from a PSU or anything like that. As far as specifics of the kind of fittings etc that were asked for, I really don't know the details."
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