OPINION | Right to abolish travel-allowance of MPs: Need to charge for their non-availed rail-journey

By SUBHASH CHANDRA AGRAWAL | February 4, 2018

Union Finance Minister in Union Budget for fiscal-year 2018-19 while increasing salaries of Parliamentarians has rightly abolished grossly misused and highly mismatched provision of travel-allowance which was 25-percent of cost of air-ticket. While many Parliamentarians deliberately took air-tickets at last moment to purchase at highly-increased cost to avail more travel-allowance, Parliamentarians in different parts of the country got highly mismatched travel-allowance because of varying ticket-costs according to distance.

Since Parliamentarians book multiple rail-reservations for a single journey and do not care to cancel non-availed journeys because of not being paid from their own pockets, the system should be such that public-exchequer may pay only for the availed rail-journeys for which it may be compulsory to get travel-certificate from Train-Ticket-Examiners (TTEs) for claiming reimbursement. Presently seats and berths of first-class air-conditioned rail-coaches destined from and to Delhi are always find over-booked because of Parliamentarians from all over the country making multiple reservations to have a wide-ranging choice of rail-travel. There are always chances of rail-staff selling un-availed seats and berths to others for their personal gains. Public-funds must not be wasted for carelessness of Parliamentarians failing to cancel un-availed reservations.

About the writer: Subhash Chandra Agrawal is a Guinness Record Holder & RTI Consultant and can be reached at subhashagrawal1950@subhashmadhu.com

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